


tea time

by gouguruheddo



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boyfriends, Canon, Husbands, M/M, Manga Spoilers, Mike Zacharias - Freeform, Nanaba - Freeform, No continuity between chapters, Pre-Canon, erumike - Freeform, eruri - Freeform, fathers, hange zoe - Freeform, levihan - Freeform, moblit berner - Freeform, short things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2018-09-22 19:49:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 79
Words: 64,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9622943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gouguruheddo/pseuds/gouguruheddo
Summary: mostly prompt based drabbles with no particular rhyme or reason and probably no capitalization (probably)





	1. sunburn

the fields outside the walls are sparse when it comes to shelter from the elements, and their cloaks can only do so much to protect them. not only do they return back to the walls tattered and blood soaked, but their skin is wind beaten and sun kissed.  
  
even after four years, levi’s skin still wasn’t used to the sun. the tip of his nose was red as a beet and his cheeks as pink as a rose hip. he laid on erwin’s bed, a cold wash cloth over his face, and his body clean after a careful and meticulous wash. even blinking hurt, so he felt contended that he would be uninterrupted. erwin had too much paperwork to do to return before the sun came up.  
  
but levi had been known to be wrong, and tonight was one of those nights. the door creaked open and clicked shut. muffled, under the wash cloth, levi said, “what are you doing here?”  
  
“this is my room, i believe.” levi could hear the sound of the long zippers on erwin’s boots being undone. “what are you doing here?” levi shrugged, wincing as even _that_  somehow hurt his face. and the wincing just made it hurt more.  
  
“my fucking face feels like it’s been through a cheese grater.”  
  
erwin chuckled softly. snaps of buckles, rustling of clothes. the soft _pat_  of the articles hitting the floor. erwin’s weight fell onto the bed, sagging the edge of it. “i think it feels nice.”  
  
“yeah, well you’re kind of a dumbass.”  
  
“we’re lucky.”  
  
“now i _know_  you’re a dumbass.”  
  
“we are of the few that ever get to see that world. sunburns are a nice little souvenir.” erwin leaned over and picked up the corner of the washcloth and waited for levi’s eye to peek open and peer back at him. “plus, it makes you look adorable.”  
  
levi slapped erwin’s hand away. the cool relief of the cloth fell back onto his face. “go back to work, lazy ass.”  
  
“i’m already done.” erwin leaned his body over and anchored his hand on the other side of levi. “the silver lining to an underwhelming expedition is that we had no casualties.”  
  
“those gold suckers are gonna roast you, though. they need results.”  
  
“yes, i know.” erwin drew his face close above the washcloth. “however…” he lifted the bottom of the damp towel to reveal levi’s lips. he grazed his against levi’s, and levi breathed out shakily. “i kissed the sun today, so they can wait.”


	2. regret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a meta turned prose. chapter 90 spoilers

the survey corps is forced to eat their grief. if they don’t, then it will eat them alive. hange tells mikasa this. they’ve lost so many people it’s hard to deal with–and after losing moblit and erwin, it’s even harder. but they have to push through and deal with it in their own ways.

levi can’t escape this rule. he maybe even fuckin’ wrote it from being in the underground for so long. but it’s not easy. he knew what it was like to eat shit all day, hated to see other people have to do it, his empathy a string tying their hearts together in the alleyways, above ground, on the battlefield.  
  
he holds their hands, watches them die, hopes they know that he’ll never forget their faces and what they did for him. for humanity. he wears their bravery as a stitch in his cloak, forces himself to carry their weight without regrets. 

sometimes they haunt him in his dreams, but he can’t tell anyone. this is his, and he must protect everybody from it. even himself.

he shoots a man. and another. they’re men, just like his men, but they’re on the wrong side and he wonders why they’re fighting at all. they aren’t titans. they’re men.

but the titans are men, and erwin is smiling, and he can’t really figure out how he should feel because he’s been holding all of this in for so long that the ghosts of his past sit under his skin like a cancer. he’s been killing men the whole time, and he never knew their names.

no, he killed them to _protect_ his men.

but he killed a man.

he’s killed so many men.

he doesn’t have enough fingers and toes to count. he would die before he could count so high.

and he killed the best of them.

flocke looks at him. there’s a desperation in his eyes, wild enough to be on a cornered wolf, but he doesn’t attack him. let’s him save armin in body alone, knowing full well that he his condemning the young man to the worst death he had ever sold to anybody. and only because he can’t bare to see his liege become the demon he had thought himself to be.

he wasn’t. he never could be.

yes, you are heichou. he hears it on the voices woven in his cloak, and they sigh in the wind on the rooftop. they trusted him. he trusted himself.

he watches him die. feels the last bit of his patched heart rip at the seams and spill its contents across the empty shell of his being. a lightening crash, a skeletal figure, bertholt’s screams.

was it worth it? please, he pleads, please make it worth it.

he’s killed three men in one decision.

no…

no, make it four.


	3. aquarium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bedtime story for erwinsalive on tumblr. prompt: aquarium

there’s not a lot of whale sharks in captivity, so while levi and erwin are on vacation in japan, they make sure they visit osaka aquarium. levi has a particular fondness for sharks. they’re powerful and ferocious, but in an effortlessly graceful way. honestly, he never really had an opinion until erwin pointed out that levi reminded him of one… and he thought that was pretty cool.

however, he doesn’t love great whites or hammer heads or even nurse sharks; he has a particular affinity toward whale sharks. their size defies their personality. they are slow and goofy looking, their bodies sliding through the water as if it were made of molasses. he likes them because they remind him of erwin. tall. broad shoulders. stoic face. but deep down, that big beast doesn’t stalk prey. he shelters and feeds the little pilot fish that swim along in his stream.

“look at that big ass shark.” levi comments. he pulls a granola bar out of his pocket and starts munching on it. he’ll be damned if he pays the expensive aquarium fees for snacks.

“it certainly is big.” erwin says, a small smile on his face. he looked down at his short husband and wraps an arm around his shoulder. he takes the granola bar from levi without asking and shoves the rest of it in his mouth. levi glares up at him, but he’s too content, too happy, to punch the big oaf in the gut.

“we should take it home.”

“i don’t think he will fit in the house, darling.”

“then put him in the backyard.”

“we live in the city.”

“i thought you loved me.”

erwin snorts. “i do, i do. but i’m afraid you’ll have to do without him for now.”

levi leans into erwin. the big whale shark lazily swims by them again, its mouth open and filtering food through a toothless mouth. “i guess i’ll have to keep you, then.”


	4. groceries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bedtime story for erwinsalive on tumblr. her prompt was "grocery shopping".

they have a list. well, levi has a list. levi has the aisles memorized, has it sorted so they start in produce and move through to frozen foods before checking out. normally, his handwriting is around average, but on grocery day, it’s fucking _perfect_. it’s his fine print. his unofficial contract with his big oaf of a husband. 

it’d be admissible in court. sorry your honor, but as you can see here on this list, chocolates _were not there_. can you honestly blame me for having to stab him in the middle of the candy aisle? i rest my case.

it’s hange’s birthday this weekend, and levi promised to bring a cake to their party. levi hates going down the baking aisle. it’s the hardest aisle to keep erwin focused in. but he loves baking from scratch, so it takes him several minutes to fill his arms with the ingredients for a chocolate wine cake before returning to their cart.

“what the fuck is that.” levi hisses. there’s a big bag of dove chocolates sitting on top of a head of broccoli. 

erwin hums. “what?”

“don’t you ‘what’ me.” levi drops the ingredients into the cart and pulls the list out and shoves it into erwin’s hands. “ _read it.”_

erwin nods as he reads the list. “broccoli, celery, potatoes, green peppers…”

“to yourself!” levi’s temper is flaring as he turns to put the chocolates back on the shelf. 

they make it through the rest of the store without incident. at check out, they pile the groceries on the conveyer belt, sorted by product type to avoid crushing anything on the ride home. that’s when levi sees them.

“erwin! are you shitting me right now?!” levi grabs the bag of chocolates from the belt and squeezes them in his fist. the clerk stops mid-scan, wide eyed and unsure if she should continue.

erwin shrugs, a sly smile tugging at his lips.

“we have a budget for a reason. four fucking dollars is four dollars less that goes toward your future children’s college fund!”

“just one bag a month, darling.”

“one bag a month for 10 years is…” levi stops to calculate, can’t seem to carry the two in his head, and shakes out his agitation through his limbs. “a lot of fucking money! and that doesn’t include inflation!”

“i can put it back…” the clerk says softly.

“that’s not the point!” levi snaps at her.

“darling, it’s not her fault. i’m sorry.” erwin nods an acknowledgement and goes to give the bag of sweets to the clerk. levi snatches the bag back and slams it on the belt.  
  
“no, if you want it so bad, you can have it.”

“levi…”

levi crosses his arms and doesn’t say anything else until they’re in the parking lot and filling the back of erwin’s suv with their purchases.

“i’m sorry.” erwin says. levi doesn’t respond. “i’m just playing around. i didn’t mean to piss you off so much.”

levi stops, brings a hand to the bridge of his nose and huffs out a sigh. “i hate grocery shopping with you.”

“you hate grocery shopping.”

“yeah, i know.”

“i make it interesting, though.”

levi shakes his head.

“it’s only going to be worse when we have kids.” erwin says, a smile on his voice as he loads the last bag into the back.

“am i suppose to practice on you, then?”

erwin chuckles. “at least i can handle being yelled at.”

levi looks around the parking lot quickly before grabbing a big handful of erwin’s ass and squeezing. “you won’t be able to handle what i do to you when we get home.”

“oh, a threat?”

“a _promise_.”

erwin gets into the drivers seat, his cheeks and the tips of his ears red and hot, another successful grocery day completed.


	5. laughing at a funeral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time story for asexual_ravioli. her prompt: laughing at a funeral

they don’t have time to mourn over the dead–not properly anyway. so when they return from the expedition that night, defeated and fewer in numbers, many of the remaining survey corps take to drinking away memories until they’re nothing but hazy waking nightmares. because maybe at the bottom of the next bottle they’ll find a morning that won’t recall felled comrades. friends. lovers.

levi doesn’t drink. drinking is careless. numbing. selfish. he sits with a steaming cup of tea in erwin’s office, his shoulder leaning against the cold glass that overlooks the courtyard. he looks down at his cup, frowns as he realizes he doesn’t enjoy the taste. wonders if he over steeped it, or if death has just finally altered his sense of taste. he’s lived too long to be allowed to enjoy anything anymore.

erwin is scribbling away on paperwork, his own cup of tea ignored and growing cold. his thick eyebrows are knit and wrapped in concentration to the point that levi would be surprised if he recognized there was even another warm body in the room. he thought of cold ones so often, levi wonders more often these days if he even sees anybody as being alive anymore. especially after he lost his arm.

all of his men were just walking corpses waiting to be burned.

there’s laughter in the courtyard. a small pack of soliders are stumbling across the cobblestone, singing and slurring loudly back to the barracks. they should be punished for being out past curfew and disturbing the peace, but the commander has enough of a heart left to allow them this. they did well today. and who knew when the next expedition would be. who knew if they would return that time.

erwin runs to exhaustion, his head having fallen to the desk as the grandfather clock chimed softly at two in the morning. levi gets up from the window sill, replaces the quill that had slipped between erwin’s fingers back into the ink well, and brushes a stray blonde strand from his commander’s face. he takes erwin’s undisturbed tea cup and drinks it down cold and without satisfaction. 

he moves to leave the room, to let erwin wake up in his office in a few hours like he had done so many countless times before. levi hears the laughter again, so deep into the evening, the festivities of sorrow clearly not having ended. he goes back to erwin’s desk and places the tea cup quietly back onto the surface before making his way to slouch on the couch. 

he doesn’t sleep.

the laughter ebbs like tides and echoes like shallow screams among tall trees until the sun rises.


	6. trains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for erwinsalive on tumblr. her prompt: trains

“it would have been faster to drive.” erwin says, his face buried in a newspaper.

levi holds a book on his lap, his legs crossed and his knee jerking to the rhythm of the train moving along the track. “i know that.”

“so stop fidgeting.”

the smaller man rolls his neck and lets out a sigh through his nose. “i hate your driving.”

“you have a driver’s license.”

levi grinds his teeth, and avoids making eye contact with his new husband. day three of their honeymoon and they were already at each other’s throats. “i’m not having this conversation.”

erwin flips a page. his shoulders shrug in silent response. 

flying was too stressful and dirty for levi–the circulated air roused dangerous panic attacks. erwin had a tendency to speed on highways–bringing levi’s knuckles to a white so pure it was normally reserved as a color inside a crayon box. and buses… fuck buses.

it has been thirteen hours on the same train on their way to chicago. levi wonders if they’ll even make it back alive before killing each other. he fingers the wedding band on his left hand and puckers his lips. it’s too early for tension and anger. he’s here to celebrate his life with the man that had offered him a new one. “you know, people used to think that women’s body’s couldn’t handle going more than fifty miles per hour.”

erwin doesn’t respond at first, but he folds the corner of his newspaper to peer over, interested.

“said their uteruses would fly out of their vaginas or some shit.”

“you’re making that up.” erwin is smiling despite his best efforts.

levi closes his book and leans his head back against his seat to fish for his husband’s blue eyes. “it’s too stupid to be made up.”

erwin hums and folds his newspaper shut. “that _is_  pretty ridiculous.”

“i’m pretty sure my uterus would fly out of my vagina if you drove us to chicago.”

“it’s not in my four year plan to get you pregnant anyway. it would have been a blessing.”

levi grins, happy for the ample leg room and the empty seats around them as he leans over and places his hand on erwin’s stomach. he leans in and nuzzles erwin’s neck as his fingers grip onto the fabric of his cotton shirt. “but babies, erwwy, i want the babies!”

erwin brushes levi’s hand off of him with a hearty chuckle. “you’ll be lucky if you get anything at this point. this train is so bumpy i’m sure my sperm count has gone down.”

levi’s eyes blow wide, and suddenly he’s very serious. “do you think so?”

erwin looks at him for a long while before laughing. “of course not.”

levi breathes out long, resting his head on erwin’s shoulder and closing his eyes. “good. i want strong healthy babies. babies that can conquer nations.”

“do you think hange would surrogate for us?”

levi is quiet for a few moments, listening to the train clack along its course, feeling it sway like a cradle. “do you think you’d die if i pushed you out of the train right now?”

erwin rests his cheek on top of levi’s head. “probably.”

“perfect.”


	7. boxers or briefs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt by snowtoes on tumblr

“no.”

“what?”

“no way. we’re done here.”

“what, hey, what!?”

levi zips up erwin’s jeans and stands up from his spot between his legs. “i didn’t sign up to suck off some old man wearing tighty whities.”

“it’s laundry day!”

“i doubt that. you’ve known about this date for a week.” levi moves away to the kitchenette in his small apartment. he plus down a glass from the cupboard and fills it with tap water. he looks through the glass at erwin as he drinks. he breathes out and dabs the corners of his mouth with the edge of his hoodie sleeve. “have some self respect.”

erwin runs his hand down his face and tilts his head back on the couch. their first date, and he’s already lost all hope of getting to second base. and levi had been such a catch, too. “well what do _you_  wear, hot shot?”

“you won’t be finding out.” 

erwin’s eyes flash with intensity, and he stands up from the couch, the tightness in his jeans making him walk with a queer gait. he leans his hand on the counter next to levi, takes the glass from his hand and places it into the sink. “it’s ok, i already know.” he places his hands on levi’s shoulders, and the smaller’s man’s eyes go hot.

“try me, perv.”

erwin smirks, his hands trailing down levi as if he’s carving him from stone. they rest on his hips as he leans in, his lips brushing against levi’s cheekbones. his fingers continue down to levi’s thighs, and then back up to rest at the top of his jeans, tugging down slightly. “you go commando, perv.”

“hmph.”

“i’m right, aren’t i?” erwin kisses a trail down to his jaw, and levi’s breath gets caught behind his adam’s apple as it bobs from a thick swallow.

“ass on the counter, old man.”

erwin grins. “yessir.”


	8. mustaches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for erwinsalive. prompt: mustaches

they don’t tell anybody before they arrive at hange’s fourth of july party.

“happy fourth of _holy shit_.” they say, backing into the front door, jingling the bells from the festive seasonal wreath that adorned it. hange always accidentally decorated for christmas in july.

“good afternoon, hange.” erwin says politely, a large bowl of homemade potato salad in his hands.

“hey.” levi says, his own hands occupied with a tray of red, white, and blue m&m cookies.

hange moves out of the way of the door to let them pass inside. they gesture their hand around their mouth, their head shaking, “so we’re just not gonna…”

they ignore them as they move deeper into the house, hange still chattering to themselves down the hallway.

“mike! banana!” erwin calls out as he enters into the kitchen to deposit his goods. “where’s moblit? i have something for him.”

mike and nanaba are sitting at the kitchen table, mouths unhinged and dropped so far they may have cemented into the wooden surface. “cooking…” is all mike can say, pointing a finger to the sliding glass door that leads to the porch.

erwin leaves out through the back door. moblit turns to address the disturbance and immediately needs to cover his mouth before saying anything. “oh my goodness,” he says over fits of giggles. “i can’t believe…” and then he sees levi, and erwin is almost positive the man has started to piss himself.

“oi, pay up.” levi says, but he can’t help but smile a little as well. erwin is absolutely beaming with amusement, and he loves seeing him that way. the two weeks of struggling to recognize his own reflection in the mirror has been worth it.

“what did they say?” moblit says, his eyes watering and his breathing hitched between onsets of laughter.

and as if being summoned, hange comes roaring through the back door, shaving cream and razor in hand. “ _i’m not letting either of ya eat any of my food with that shit above your lips, ya hear?”_  
  
levi looks up at erwin, his mouth wide in a smile, the dark mustache above his lip declaring its rarity even more so. “if they touch me, erwin…” he takes a step back, his foot resting on plush green grass of the small fenced in yard.

erwin fans his forefinger and thumb against his own mustache, grinning alongside his boyfriend. “don’t worry, moblit will bail us out of jail.”

they scatter in the backyard as hange chases them. the two men manage to successfully pin hange down and shave off their right eyebrow before the first round of bratwursts are served.


	9. porn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt by erwinsalive.

erwin hears the distinct sound of sex and the smell of cigarettes when he comes home.

he removes his jacket and loafers and loosens his tie as he walks deeper into the apartment. he follows the sounds, loud and raunchy; he follows the smell, heavy and desperate. his tie slinks off from around his neck and lays limp at his side. levi is sitting at the edge of their bed, hunched over with one elbow on his thigh, his other arm up and holding a cigarette to his mouth. his leg is bouncing along the side of the tall bed, and his jaw juts out as he releases a stream of smoke between his teeth.

levi doesn’t smoke in the apartment unless it has been a very, very stressful day.

“levi?” erwin leans over and catches a glimpse of the porno on the bedroom television. 

it must have been a _really_ stressful day.

levi’s eyes snap up to erwin, as if he’s just now realizing that he’s returned home. “erwin.” he stands up abruptly, snuffs out his cigarette in the ashtray on the dresser as he walks up to his boyfriend and presses their bodies together. he pulls erwin’s face down to him, rough and needy, hot and fevered, like he has been waiting years, not hours, to shove his tongue down the man’s throat.

they lose their clothes. erwin nearly faceplants as his foot gets stuck in his pants leg. levi doesn’t laugh, shows no other emotion but _need_ , pulls erwin’s hips toward his own until they both fall onto the edge of the bed. he shudders at the raw feeling of flesh on flesh, feels erwin’s cock laying heavily between his legs. 

“baby, i think it’s time to stick that cock in your ass.” grunts the man on the screen.

levi has prepped himself already, and he moans so loud when erwin enters him that it sounds theatrical. but erwin chases it, chases the next moan until it dissipates into a scream, until the sounds of their own panting, the sounds of their bodies slapping into each other, drowns out the high volume of the porn. he holds a hand around levi’s neck, drives his cock deeper into levi’s ass until they both grunt so loudly with release erwin is sure that the people in the parking lot can hear them.

they pause briefly, panting and sweating heavily until levi queues up another video, takes erwin’s cock all the way down his throat, moaning deep around the girth until he wrings the larger man dry for the second time in under an hour.

they fuck again as the sun starts to set, using the television screen as a nightlight. erwin fucks him against the wall, levi’s arms grabbing desperately for purchase against sweaty flesh, his heels kicking bruises into erwin’s lower back, his shoulder blades chaffing against the matte finish of the paint. his head hits the drywall so hard when he comes that he leaves a shallow dent in it. erwin kisses his forehead and rubs gentle fingers to the crown of his head as they both giggle, levi cursing under his breath as he tries to catch it. 

they finally end up on the bed, not even upset that they haven’t had had dinner, erwin taking a drag from levi’s cigarette before placing it back between levi’s lips. “want to talk about it?” erwin offers. he doesn’t expect anything, though.

“that fucking cunt,” levi starts. his attention is set on the television screen. they have changed it to some reality show. “if she tells me i’m going to hell one more time, i’m gonna fuckin’ punch her in the tit.” he huffs out a cloud of smoke, his fingers curling with agitation.

erwin knows he’s talking about their neighbor, the one on the opposite side of their bedroom. she thinks she’s well meaning, wishes them a place in god’s kingdom through pocket bibles and fakes smiles. but really, she just doesn’t like the idea of two men fucking so close to her brats, propagating the gay agenda or whatever. 

he grins. “she is quite a bitch.”

“understatement. just say it for me, babe.”

“ok, she’s a _huge_ cunt.”

levi grins back. he snuffs out the cigarette and straddles erwin’s wide thighs. he looks down at him, sultry and demanding. “think you can go again, big boy?”

erwin ruts his hips up into levi, wrapping his arms around him to pull him down on top of him. foreheads pressed together, lips grazing against each other, erwin holds him like he’s the most important thing in the world–because he is. “i’m going to make you scream so loud you won’t be able to talk for a week.”


	10. cinnamon rolls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt by anon. "looks like cinnamon roll /could kill you meme for the Veterans please!"

_[Hange Zoe sent an image](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/26/27/7a/26277a617d8b3adee2e8bcf81352e591.jpg) _

**Hange Zoe:** Have you guys seen this new dank meme?

**Nanaba Zacharias:** What are we looking at?

**Levi Ackerman-Smith:** shut up

**HZ:** I want to rank us!!!

**Mike Zacharias:** what?

**NZ:** What does ‘cinnamon roll’ mean?

_[Hange Zoe sent an image](http://i1.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/017/991/tumblr_mzv3u7mQUz1qckp4qo1_500.png) _

**NZ:** Oh, cute! :D Hmmmm.

**MZ:** easy. moblit looks and is a cinnamon roll.

**NZ:**  Oh my god! Agreed!!

**Moblit Berner:**  Huh? Oh! Thank you so much, Nanaba and Mike!

**NZ:** :*

**MZ:** hey, lay off my girl, mobile

**MB:** Hehe

**HZ:** Heeeeeyyyy what about me!!!???

**LA:** the cinnamon roll i want to burn in the oven

**MZ:** haha. good one.

**LA:** thanks

**HZ:** Awwww, Levi, I love you too!!

**LA:** fuckin gross

**NZ:** ToT ToT ToT

**NZ:** Oh! I got another one… Don’t be mad at me, babe, but I think you’re the one that looks like and could kill.

**MZ:** that’s the sexiest thing you’ve ever said to me.

**LA:** pft mikes a pussy

**MZ:** say that to my face, little man.

**LA:** gladly

**MB:** Hey, guys, come on. Stop.

**NZ:** Yeah, we’re all having fun here! ^___^

**MB:** I think the Commander looks like a cinnamon roll but could actually kill you.

**HZ:** Holy shit, yeah.

**MZ:** yup

**NZ:** *thumbs up*

**LA:** you guys don’t know him at all

**Erwin Smith:** Levi’s the one that looks like he could kill, but is really a cinnamon roll.

**HZ:** BAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHA

**NZ:** Oh no! ToT *roll* ToT 

**MZ:** lmao

**MB:** I suppose I could see it.

**LA:** ErrWWWiiIIiIINNNNN!!!1

**HZ:** HAAAAAAAAHAHAHA

**MB:** Hange, please, I can hear you all the way in the living room!

_Levi Ackerman-Smith changed the chat color._

__Levi Ackerman-Smith changed the chat color._   
_

___Levi Ackerman-Smith changed the chat color._   
_ _

**HZ:** Haha. What are you doing, Levi?

**ES:** He’s trying to leave the room.

**MZ:** l.m.a.o.

**LA:** fuck you guys

_Levi Ackerman-Smith left the conversation._

**HZ:** OMG, Erwin, your husband is adorable.

**ES:** I know. :-)

_Hange Zoe added Levi Ackerman-Smith to the conversation._

__Levi Ackerman-Smith left the conversation._   
_

**NZ:** This is so cruel. I love it.

_Hange Zoe added Levi Ackerman-Smith to the conversation._

**LA:** FuCKkk U HANfe!

__Levi Ackerman-Smith left the conversation._   
_

**ES:** Oh. Oh my.

**MB:** What’s wrong, Commander?

**ES:** He threw his phone and broke it.

**MZ:** that is fucking hilarious.

**HZ:** HAHAHAH! He’s not a cinnamon roll; he’s an angry muffin!!

**NZ:** I think that’s it then. -_-;

**ES:** Yes, I suppose. Talk to you all later. Levi says good night, too. ;-)

**HZ:** Gooooooood night!!!

**NZ:** Nighty!

**MZ:** later.

**MB:** Good night, Squad.


	11. japan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt by asexual_ravioli (crystalannie)

they’ve been sorting through papers for the past hour. to-do lists, iteneraries, reservations. everything’s printed out. manilla folders are labelled. **hotels**. **tours**. **train tickets**. levi’s handwriting is neat and bold, meticlious in his organization as he is with his cleaning. they don’t need to print this information out, not in this day and age, but the tangibility seems to soothe his racked nerves.

he checks for the second dozen time that the plane tickets are printed and in the **plane** folder. he reads it again and again. fly to san francisco, fly to tokyo _narita_. fly from tokyo  _haneda,_ fly from san francisco. he reads it over and over again, tries to picture how they’re different. why does tokyo need two airports? which one is better? what will he feel like after 17 hours of travel?

he seizes, his fingers clenched on the folder. he already feels the grime caking on his face. the grease in his hair. the layer of dirt on his skin. he pictures the smell of everybody else, circulating in the air with their around-the-world-sicknesses. fuck, he hates flying. he hates it so damn much.

he swore to erwin that in a past life, he must have died from falling. stepping up a ladder was a task he could only do when confronted with the desire to clean. roller coasters, bridges, planes–fuck no. he’d find his adventures elsewhere.

erwin says he’s being irrational. dying from a car accident is much more likely, and that argument never helps to soothe levi’s mood. he shouts at him those times, telling him that his fear of planes is totally rational–or at least more rational than erwin’s fear of apes.

“it’s ok, darling.” erwin says, softly. he places a hand on one of levi’s hands, running his thumb along a knuckle long enough for levi to loosen his hold on the folder. it’s wrinkled and a little damp from sweat.

“i know.” levi says, but they both don’t quite believe it.

“this is the first big trip we’re taking together. we’ll have all our ducks in a row. everything will be fine.”

“i know.”

“we will get there, and we will have a good time. we’ll come back and wonder why we didn’t stay.”

“the kids.” levi drops the folder to the table.

“well, yes, they’re the best reason to return, i suppose.” erwin smiles gently.

“what if we never see them again?”

“are you really worried about that?” levi looks at him, cold and stern. of course he’s serious. “we’ll make it home. we’re going to have a nice time, levi. i promise.”

levi sighs, tries to let the anxiety leave out through his nose, but it’s not helping–much. “i know.” his fingernail picks at the edge of the folder, his eyes trained on the table, working through his panic until he can feel his lungs contract again.

“i love you.” erwin says, strong enough to make sure levi believes him, gentle enough to not scare him away.

levi bites his lip, nods quickly as he picks up his sharpie again to mark the next folder: **husband hugs**. “we’ll need these, too.”

erwin chuckles with a satisfied nod. “they’re the most important.”


	12. hipster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt from erwinsalive. <3

the summer humidity sticks to them, makes their shirts damp, and their faces slick and shiny. levi kicks his feet out as they walk in an attempt to exercise the muscles he hasn’t used in almost three hours. 

they had droned on like bees through the hottest time of the day, buzzing but not producing any honey. tall men in long coats, hands folded on expensive wood found outside of wall sina–a place that has been closed off for over a year since shinganshina fell. 

a charade. a game. all of which erwin is an expert. he uses his drones. he makes the honey.  

they praise levi, call him “humanity’s strongest”. mention his kill count as if it’s accurate at all–as if it matters at all. the titan’s kill count is higher. much higher. 

 “i recognized it first.” erwin says. it sounds protective, stern, all while being so incredibly matter-of-fact. levi can smell the pomade in his hair, sweet like sap but tangled in his intoxicating musk. levi walks along side erwin’s right side, close enough that their arms are touching. “your potential.” erwin answers the unasked question. “i’m glad they’re noticing it now too.” they exit the building into the courtyard, their carriage waiting to bring them back to headquarters. “makes my job easier." 

levi isn’t sure why he’s saying all this. he knows it all, has had it implied through actions. lance corporal is a title never held by another. no other solider drinks the black tea that he does. erwin finds him special. 

 “i’m proud of you." 

levi’s lips twitch into a frown. his cheeks flush against the heat of the outdoors, the sun radiating against his dark hair, cooking his scalp, reddening his neck and cheeks and nose. he sighs out softly, almost inaudibly. finds he can’t find the words to respond, so chooses not to all.


	13. love at first sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt from snowtoes. :)

the knife _sounds_  sharp. it hits his blade, and i feel the resistance travel up my arm and into my elbow. i brace myself, feel the gravel skidding under the thin soles of my boots as his weight–all of it–presses against his blade. into me. _into me_.

fuck, he’s big. big enough to wreck any other man. but i’m not any other man. i’m fucking levi ackerman, and i know that means something. especially down here.

his eyes follow me as we dance. they’re so blue… blue as the sky me, isabel, and furlan saw when we released isabel’s broken bird. he’s survey corps, all right. green cloak for fields; blue eyes for sky. he’s tasted freedom and all the luxuries with it, and he crashes his blade against mine again, as if he’s had to use it fight for food. as if he’s ever risked being starved.

his hand finds my wrist, and i find his. it’s tight, and my blood surges against his fingers, and his roils against mine. he doesn’t make a sound. his eyes scream at me, attempting to smother me. it’s like they’re glowing, like some kind of beast in a dark alley scavenging on the countless broken bodies down here. i struggle against his clutch. he keeps staring.

i want to cut those _fucking_ eyes out.

“look around.” he says. his voice is deep. it’s stony like the cliffs of his cheekbones, and his lips are taut and cracked like sandstone. i push against him.

i hear isabel.

_isabel_.

i hate him. i push against him again, but he’s too big. fuck, he’s too big. i can disarm him by sweeping his legs. i can get out of this. nobody is impenetrable. especially not him.

but _isabel. furlan._ my _family._

my fingers recoil one by one. my knife falls to the ground. he’s supposed to take us, that’s part of the plan. keep it together, levi. play the part. my heart is beating so fast–it’s been over a decade since anybody has made me feel like this.

yes, he’s supposed to take us, but i don’t have to like him. this perfect man of the survey corps. this silver spoon licking asshole. this well groomed fucker that’s never had to live in his own shit. this man that’s lived above ground, has tasted air that only birds have tasted. privileged cunt with no regrets for the men he’s seen die.

_fuck you._

he releases me, and i realize how numb my fingers have gone. how phantom like it is without his touch on me. his eyes move to his comrades, and the blue in them changes from sky to ice. there was a heat and it’s gone. it feels empty, and i feel cold. i shiver on my knees before him. spit at his feet to get the sewage taste out of my mouth.

he says his name is erwin smith.

_erwin smith_.

he asks me mine.

i pause. his eyes. his. eyes.

“levi.” i say.

he kneels to look at me. his eyes are sky blue again. i can see the future in them–my future–above ground. no…  _our_  future above ground. i want to see hope in them, because he commands it. my heart pounds, and i swallow.

_erwin_ smith.

oh… _fuck me_ …


	14. subpar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt from crystalannie. :D

“why do I even bother.” levi says, his voice raised and erwin can practically hear the spittle hit the inside of levi’s handkerchief as he does. 

“i’m sorry.” erwin pulls his own handkerchief from his mouth, his face drawn down into sincere concern. “i’m trying." 

"are you, though?” he roughly takes the duster from erwin’s hands and throws it on the couch. “i mean, if you enjoy working in filth then that’s up to you.” erwin goes to say something, that he really doesn’t mind a thin layer of dust on books that he doesn’t read or a slightly cluttered desk. it doesn’t affect how he works and when he gets things done. “erwin smith… 13th commander of the survey corps. don’t you _dare_.”

“levi, truly, i’m sorry.” he holds his arms out, tries to show his apology through body language. levi doesn’t seem impressed. “you just do so much for me, i wanted to help.”

“you’re just getting in my way.”

erwin’s arms come back to his sides, a corner of his mouth dipping into a frown. “yes, i suppose i am.” he fidgets for a moment with levi’s eyes on him, and he can’t quite bring himself to look into them.

levi considers him. they’ve been at war together for over two years now, and in that time he and erwin have been nearly inseparable. erwin has his strength and weaknesses just like everybody else. he isn’t particularly good at singing. he tends to over steep tea. he snores loud enough to saw wood. but he never does anything half-assed. even the involuntary things, erwin gives all of his heart.

and he _is_ trying really hard to help levi clean his own damn office.

levi walks over to the couch and picks the duster back up. he turns to erwin and holds it out for him to take. “i… appreciate it.” levi says softly. he doesn’t lock eyes with erwin, but he can see the thin line of erwin’s lips part into a smile. “just… stay over there or something.” he tilts his head toward the corner where a tall bookshelf heavy with hundreds of capital regulated books sits. “when i come over there, every book better have been pulled out, dusted, and the shelf cleaned.”

erwin smirks.

“and i’ll be checking the top shelves too.”

erwin fakes a pout, shuffling over to his assigned corner before a smile reemerges when he hears levi laugh softly under his breath.


	15. misunderstanding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: misunderstanding
> 
> "Hanji and Levi plotting for Levi to ask Erwin on a date. Erwin misheard their conversation and now thinks Levi and Hanji are dating and haven't told him"

“we should go out to dinner.” levi says.

“no, that’s too... typical.”

“you’re not a typical person.”

hange laughs. “i guess not, right?” hange leans back in their chair, the front two legs lifting off the floor as they rock themselves back and forth. “how about... a movie?”

“and you said dinner was typical...”

hange lets out a belly laugh as the legs of the chair fall and connect to the tile of the kitchen floor. levi winces at the sound. “all right all right all right. how about... a museum!”

levi makes a noise, one found somewhere between boredom and intrigue. “maybe.”

“a historical museum!”

“i thought you’d say science.”

“nah, those have too many kids.”

levi doesn’t say that he likes kids, or that erwin likes kids too and that it’s the reason erwin is a teacher at all. he shakes his head. but history _is_  more up erwin’s alley, he reasons. “history might be good.”

“then go to dinner!”

“oh, go to dinner _after_  the museum.”

“well yeah. no date is a date without dinner.”

levi sighs heavily out of his nose, pinching the bridge of it as he squeezes his eyes shut. how hange is a genius in the neurosciences still confuses him to this day.

but this can work. now he just has to get the courage to ask the big nugget out.

\---

erwin lingers in the hallway of hange’s house. he carefully tip toes closer to the kitchen, hoping that no floorboards will betray his presence. are hange and levi planning... a date?  
  
he feels something churning in his gut, and the only thing he can attribute it to is jealously. he thought levi and himself were starting to hit it off. hange is their mutural friend, and they introduced the two men to each other just over six months ago. levi always gravitated toward him during events, sat quietly at his side and chuckled at his terrible jokes. he’s brash, but in a good way, where erwin never has to question his honesty or the musings inside of his head. plus, he was incredibly attractive.

he thinks... did he not appear to show enough interest? their circle of friends were all over the spectrum for sexuality, but maybe erwin came off... too straight? erwin catches a laugh in his throat before it can escape. what a stupid thing to think.

but... does he?

he rubs a hand along the back of his neck, feels that it’s sweating. notices then that his heart is racing. it makes sense. hange and levi have been friends forever. longer than he’s been friends with hange. but he always thought it was fraternal--not romantic attraction. clearly, he was wrong.

erwin decides on whether to continue into the kitchen or to head back to the living room where mike, nanaba, and moblit are lounging. it takes him a full minute to decide before he turns around and goes back to sit dejectedly on the couch next to mike.

\---

“hey...” levi says, blowing a puff of smoke out of his mouth. the evening air is cold, but warmer than it should be for mid february.

“hello.” erwin replies.

“what are you doing out here?” levi asks, because they both know erwin has never picked up cigarette in his life, let alone smoke one.

“i needed some fresh air. hange’s burnt cookies were giving me a headache.”

levi laughs. “even if they weren’t burnt, they’d still give you a headache. i don’t know why they keep insisting they can bake. or cook. or exist.”

erwin smiles, but can’t bring himself to laugh. he still feels jealous, and it’s an ugly feeling to have toward one of his best friends. he works some words between his lips, but none of them seem right. he had been avoiding eye contact and talking to levi all evening. he had rehearsed a speech in his head--he was going going to be the one to start this, he was going to make it clear that he’s interested in levi. but the words dissolve on his tongue, and they taste bitter and a little bit rancid.

“erwin.” levi says. he flicks the end of his cigarette, but doesn’t look up at erwin until he starts talking again. “wanna hang out this weekend?”

“with the squad?”

levi’s cheeks redden slightly, or so erwin thinks. “no, just us. we can go to the history of trains museum. maybe... get some dinner or something.” his eyes sweep down to the ground now. he fidgets.

erwin can’t quite catch up with the words that were just said. a droning noise escapes his lips as his brain tries to process something to say.

“or not.” levi mutters. he kneels to snuff out his cigarette on the pavement, and then lets the butt roll down into his palm as he clenches it.

“yes!” erwin spits, and it’s almost a shout, almost a squeak. “yes.”

levi looks up at erwin, his eyebrow arched. “yes?”

“yes. absolutely. yes. please.”

“ok, don’t... make it weird.”

erwin smiles, his cheeks burning. “sorry.”

levi’s lips purse a little, the corners of his lips curling into the tiniest smile. “it’s a date, then.” 


	16. spa day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for zedsdead1001. prompt: spa day <3

levi doesn’t like people touching him. getting his haircut is torture, fingers running through his hair, each tug making him feel like he is being drawn and quartered. hand shakes are like mini iron maidens, clamping around and bleeding him out dry with quiet anxiety.

no. levi doesn’t like people touching him.

but erwin knows that he’s different. he’s got “the magic touch”. he wants to treat levi nice for their one year anniversary. wants to see those muscles in his back slump with relaxation. wants to see levi’s face sink into something the resembles comfort. levi is a never ending complexity of challenges. a rubix cube that scrambles just before the solution is discovered. being with levi has been one of the most rewarding and frustrating years of his life.

erwin’s heart flutters as he hears the apartment door open.

levi comes in and closes the door behind him and goes to pull his shoes off at the entryway. “oi, what the fuck is all this?” he says loud enough so erwin can hear him–wherever he may be.

“come into the bedroom!” erwin shouts back.

levi rolls his eyes. he had asked for a quiet night inside. he had never been one for sweet nothings or tradition. he wouldn’t admit it anybody, but having erwin is a treat enough in itself. erwin’s the catch of the god damn century.

the lights are out except for the hall nightlight and the soft golden glow coming from the open bedroom door. levi arches an eyebrow and follows his nose.  it smells like lavender and rosemary, a smell he enjoys very much. it’s clean and earthy, and he lets his guard down, lets his shoulders sink as he peeks his head into the bedroom.

“happy anniversary, darling.” erwin says softly. he’s dressed in all white–tight fitting polo shirt and cleanly pressed slacks. levi can see the outline of his pecs, and how large his thighs are against the stretch of his pants. he swallows. his eyes trail up, counts every strand of misplaced hair across his forehead, soft and without product–just like how he likes it.  their bed is covered in rose petals and there’s lines of expensive scented candles lit and placed on any available flat surface. on the nightstand is a small water fountain playing ambient music.

levi runs his hand against his nape. he doesn’t really know what to do with himself, how he’s supposed to react to something so _romantic_. so he says the only thing he can think of to say: “is this fucking enya?”

erwin is taken aback for only a fraction of second, but he’s fluent in levi now. he knows what he means. he knows what levi’s doing, but so does erwin. “i am not sure. shall i change it?”

levi looks down. lets it all sink in. the lack of pressure to do anything, the quiet night at home, the ridiculously cliche decorations, erwin dressed like an incredibly handsome fucking masseuse… erwin understands him so well, and he just struggles to comprehend how.

erwin notices, and steps forward to wrap his arms around levi. his hands trail across his body, lets one rest in dark hair, the other taking levi’s hand and interlacing their fingers. he presses his cheek against the top of his head, lets himself smile as he hears levi sigh against his chest.

“so what are we doing?” levi asks, his nose buried in erwin’s shirt.

“well,” he starts, pulling their bodies apart so he can look down at him. he runs a hand along levi’s cheek, and he can feel the heat on his palm. “i figure we get you undressed and oiled up on that bed.”

levi chokes back a laugh. “and then what?”

“i’ll work out all those knots in your back.”

“and then what?”

“and your legs.”

“and _then_  what?”

erwin grins. “we’ll see where the night takes us, darling.”


	17. funding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt by anon.
> 
> "for a prompt (is it ok that this is kinda serious?) more of the "erwin whores himself out for the good of the scouting legion"? because i'm guilty of loving that."

calloused hands need to be bought in the capital.

red lips wrap around the tips of fingerprints, chocolate eyes looking up behind charcoal eyelashes, and the blush across her cheeks is anything but artificial. her tongue flicks against an old wound, where part of the flesh has gone missing and healed over with a thick white scar. her lips slick off his finger with a wet _pop_ , and she genuinely thinks for a moment that he has an interest in anything other but her wallet.

commander erwin tastes so good. he is a delicacy–aged and weathered, refined and practiced into a man that can somehow walk the line between commoner and nobility. angel and demon. 

he comes at a high price; he comes with a promise of freedom.

her husband died during the attempted reclamation of wall maria, she tells him. he was a noble man with a noble cause–joining the survey corps after the fall of shinganshina. she asks him if he remembers him; his name was gregor hailen. 

he tells her he doesn’t remember him.

she nods solemnly.

he does.

she seems to understand.

he remembers them all.

for a moment, he thinks he cares. but it’s a feeling he has grown accustomed to–the cool feeling of pity. he takes her gently on her bed, pushes into her wetness and feels her nails sink into crevices of scars like a cylinder on a music box. she sings the songs of battles through her moans, her breasts pressed tight against his bruised chest, their bodies moving together in a rhythm that echoes the flapping of hundreds of tattered flags. 

she cries enough tears for all of the widows left in this world, and she says his name–her husband’s name–when she orgasms around him. he finishes himself across her bodice, knowing that there’s not enough room for bastards to live alongside a woman’s broken tears.

she asks erwin candidly if he really believes they’ll win this war. she wants to know that gregor died for a reason. he says yes. yes of course. and be believes it, with every ounce of his being… but her money feels heavy in his hand knowing that it was probably gregor’s at one time… that even in death he was taking more away from him, using it to send others like him to his death.

yes of course we’ll win, he says. because sometimes it’s even hard for him to believe.

he kisses her, tastes the thick flavor of salt on them from tears that hadn’t stopped flowing, that may never will, before he leaves back to his carriage to headquarters.


	18. teens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt from anon: teens.

they never get to go on field trips. as a class, they were told they were too “rowdy”. levi figures he contributes to this, as he is now, standing outside of the art museum with his hands in his pockets with his head down. with his hair in front of his face he knows he can look three years older, and he’s hoping to bum a cigarette off of somebody that doesn’t care to ask his age. 

how he even managed to scrounge money together for the trip was a surprise to him. his uncle didn’t even give him lunch money. “you’re on the food program.” he said, “deal with what they give ya, kid.” his dinners were the taste of instant noodles, and no amount of tap water could wash that salty flavor out. he had thought time and time again about selling kenny’s anxiety medication, but he knew that would just make things worse. 

levi pulls the scarf up on his nose and breathes out. it’s cold. fucking stupid cold, but he doesn’t want to be inside with those idiots. they don’t appreciate art. and it’s not that he entirely does either, but at least he’s mature enough to not giggle at a naked lady painted in blotted impressionistic style. 

“hello.” levi startles at the voice and swirls his head around. 

“hi?” levi responds, not quite sure how to address the tall stranger in front of him. 

“i apologize, i did not mean to surprise you.” he’s so proper, and he smiles, and it’s handsome and perfect and straight… probably because of the braces that are cemented on his teeth. he’s wearing a straight pair of slacks, a wool peacoat, and levi can see the thin black tie peaking out over the opening of his jacket. he must be from a private school. catholic probably. 

“whatever.” levi says. he tries to look away, but there’s a faint dimple on the strangers cheek that keeps his eyes glued. it’s cute. 

“what are you doing out here?" 

"am i not allowed to stand outside?" 

"judging by your name tag, levi, probably not.” the stranger laughs softly. levi looks down at his chest, feels foolish that he forgot it was there. he rolls his eyes at himself and tears off the sticker and crumples it in his fist. 

“and what are you doing out here, mr. schoolboy?" 

 the boy leans against the wall on the museum’s exterior. he folds his thick arms across his chest. "i requested to get some fresh air from my chaperone. i have,” he looks at his watch, because of course he wears a watch, and it looks expensive. far too expensive for a young man like himself. “four minutes before I need to go back in.” he adjusts a glove on his hand before offering it to levi. “my name is erwin." 

levi doesn’t reciprocate. “cool.”

“you didn’t answer my question.” he’s still smiling, and it makes levi shift. he’s big enough to be a football player, and it makes him uncomfortable that erwin just so happens to be his type. 

“trying to bum a cigarette.” and he’s not sure why he’s so honest. he vaguely hopes it impresses him.

erwin takes his hand back and folds it into the crook of his arm. “you look too young.”

“oi, fuck you.”

erwin laughs. “here, let me help.” before levi can say that he looks younger with the silver chunks on his teeth, erwin is gone down the street. levi pulls out his phone and checks the time. he only has three minutes before his new friend needs to go back inside. it takes him two minutes to return with a cigarette pinched between his fingers. his mouth is wide in a smile, and he looks younger than levi in that moment.

“how in the…”

“do you have a light?” levi raises an eyebrow and fumbles around his pockets before pulling out a simple disposable lighter. “actually, we should probably head over there.” erwin tilts his head across the street. levi sees the alley erwin must be referring to between two tall buildings. the big guy has a brain on him at least. he nods in response, and erwin already has the cigarette in his mouth as he checks both ways before he crosses the street. they jay walk quickly before he takes the lighter from levi and flicks it, holding it to the end of the cigarette, puffing at it to stoke it.

“you smoke?” levi says, and he can’t help but feel a little taken by this stranger.

“oh yes.”

levi smiles. “gimme.” erwin hands him the cigarette, and levi’s heart skips thinking about erwin’s lips on the end of the cigarette. watches as how his lips fall into place against each other as it leaves his mouth. he wraps his lips around the cigarette, looking up behind dark eyelashes, and he swears he can taste erwin on it. he breathes in and it’s the most delicious smoke he’s ever had. he sighs out a moan before handing the cigarette back. “you don’t look like the type.”

“that makes it easier.” levi laughs at this, and erwin keeps smiling down at him. erwin offers his hand again. “can we be friends now, levi?”

and levi wants it to be more as he takes erwin’s hand. “don’t hold your breath, erwin.”

erwin holds a grin on the corner of his lips as he lets a stream of smoke out through tight lips. the dimples on his cheeks deepen, and levi likes how he is so unassumingly dangerous.

they stay outside until the buses arrive, and levi has erwin’s number logged in his contact list before they leave. he smells like tobacco, and he can still taste erwin at the edges of his lips. he licks them as the bus drives away, a small smile cresting on his face.


	19. confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt from ahiddenpath

“truth or dare.” hange says, their eyes wide and teeth bared like an animal on the hunt. they’re leaning so far off the couch, a bottle of ipa clutched desperately within their grasp, that their knees are about to knock onto the floor.

“are you fuckin’ serious.” levi says. he’s laying across the larger part of the sectional, his legs sprawled across erwin’s lap, an iced tea cradled on his belly and between small fingers. there’s a bendy straw stuck out of it that he takes to sipping angstly.

“yeah, what is this, high school?” mike chimes in who is lazily sunk into the recliner on the other side of the room. nanaba is sitting on the floor between his legs, and they’ve been sharing a hard lemonade between them. she knocks the side of his leg with a fist.

“truth or dare, erwin!” hange repeats, and they’ve done it, having sunk completely to the floor, prone and praying to erwin to answer the damn question.

“i don’t think he wants to play.” moblit says, sitting on a stack of pillows on the floor where the two couches of the sectional meet. he has a glass of water with two cubes of ice and a large quarter of a lemon in it on the floor next to him.

“all right, i’ll play.” erwin squeezes levi’s knee with one hand, the other holding his whiskey steady on the couch. he smiles down at hange, takes a moment to consider before answering. “truth.”

levi groans and rolls his eyes.

hange leans back, losing their equilibrium and falls back into moblit’s lap. they hum loudly before blaring, “what do you want to say to levi _right now???”  
_

erwin takes a careful sip of his drink, before placing it back down onto levi’s thigh. he looks down at levi–scowling, unamused, grumpy little levi–and he smiles so wide that it almost sparkles his eyes. “i love you.”  
  
levi snorts, says “gay” before he can even censor it. then his eyes blow wide, and his breathing hitches. “wait, what?” erwin doesn’t take his eyes off of him, and levi swallows thickly.

“w… what what…” hange starts, trying to lean forward, but they’re too sloshed to do much of anything.

“oh my god.” nanaba says softly.

“what!?” hange throws their arms out wildly.

“we just witnessed the ‘first time’.” nanaba finishes.

levi fidgets out of erwin’s lap, nearly spilling both their drinks in the process. “fuck you.”

“holy shit!!! we did!” hange blurts out. their laugh fills the room so completely that it drowns out the sound of the movie they had all been absently watching.

levi stomps his way toward the kitchen. he shoots a glare back at erwin, his cheeks colored with frustration. “erwin, truth or dare?”

“it doesn’t work like–” hange starts.

erwin is still smiling, and he knows levi has a plan. “dare.” levi isn’t angry at him, just embarrassed.

“i dare you to help me find where hange keeps their lube.”

erwin laughs as hange screeches. the rest of the living room ignites in laughter as he rises from the couch to follow levi quickly down the hall. they slam hange’s door closed and lock it before they get stable enough on their feet to stop them.  
  
“god dammit!!!” is the last thing they care to listen to from the living room before levi confesses his truth back to erwin.


	20. cramming for an exam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> double dose of caffeine tea time.
> 
> anon: erwin sleeping with his eyes open  
> asexual_ravioli: cramming for an exam

“i don’t get it.”

“what don’t you get.” erwin sighs out of his nose, leaning his arm on the edge of his chair, his chin propped up with the back of his knuckles.

“why you gotta cram for a test like this.”

“it’s protocol, levi. i’ve told you this. several times.”

“it’s fucking stupid.”

“you may think what you wish, but that does not negate the fact that i must do it.”

levi leans over the back of erwin’s chair. he rests his chin on the spot between neck and shoulder, and leans over erwin to shuffle through the papers in front of him on the desk. he finds a piece and reads the first question on it: “’how much gas would you consume if you weighed 80kg and reeling at a speed of 15kph over a period of 5 minutes?’” levi scoffs and rolls his eyes, buries his nose into erwin’s neck and nuzzles it softly. he’s doing his best to distract the man from his desk, and it’s been a battle he’s been nothing but losing. badly. 

his lips brush against the soft skin as he says, “nobody even wants your job, old man.”

erwin laughs softly. “perhaps.”

“no. definitely. so just fuck ‘em. they aren’t gonna take your job away. go to bed. we have an expedition in a few days.”

erwin leans his head into levi’s and brings his hand to run through the other man’s dark hair. “i will. soon.”

levi groans, doesn’t reward his commander with a kiss as he leaves, drawing a soft noise of disappointment from the man’s throat. “fine. but i’m staying here to make sure you actually make it to your quarters before the sun rises.”

“the answer is 2 milliliters.”

levi slumps down onto the couch and rests his head against the back. “ _i don’t care_.”  
  
they both smile to themselves before levi closes his eyes and finds a small solace of rest behind his eyelids. he wakes thirty minutes later, air catching long into his lungs, his eyes wide and darting around the room to assess if anything had changed. he runs a hand down his face and breathes out a quiet yawn, stretching his limbs slightly until the joints crack.

he looks over at erwin, eyes still open and focused on the papers on his desk. “oi.” levi briefly looks away to check the grandfather clock. one in the morning. the oaf was only going to have three hours of rest before wake-up call at this rate. “ready to call it quits?”

no answer. maybe it was a particularly hard question?

“ _oi_.” levi stands from his seat and walks over to erwin’s desk. he leans his head over to catch the man’s eyes, but they don’t focus. “you have…” he waves a hand in front of his face and still gets no response. “you’ve got to be shitting me.” with a hard slam on of his fist on the desk, he rattles the candelabra and ink well a few millimeters away from their original positions, but erwin still remains asleep. 

“COMMANDER.” he booms, and this startles erwin to life. his hand slaps on the desk, his body jolting straight, and he’s up on his feet before levi even has time to stand back.

“what!?”

“what do you mean ‘what’? you fell asleep.”

erwin squeezes the back of his chair with his left hand. it takes him a moment to come down from being switched on and ready for an emergency.“oh… oh, i see.”

“with your eyes open.” levi says. erwin hums in response. “you fuckin’ creep.” levi lets a corner of his mouth to curve. “i told you to go to bed.”

“i know… i know…”

“nobody wants your job.”

“i know.”

“let’s get to you to bed.”

“right.” erwin goes to collect some papers from his desk, but levi slaps the papers back down.

“i have a question for you.”

“levi…”

“how much sleep does a commander of the survey corps need to successfully run an expedition?”

“depends on the commander.”

“i’d say it’s more than three, and you are already getting that answer incorrect. so leave that shit here, and just go to bed.”

erwin stares at levi for a long while before finally nodding. “thank you.” erwin places his hand gently on top of levi’s and runs his thumb along the knuckles.

“your test is out there–on a horse. with your men. with me. don’t fail it because you’re exhausted.”

there’s an ache there, like there always is before they leave outside the walls. erwin leans over his desk and places a soft kiss on levi’s forehead. “you’re right.”

“i know…” he says softly, as if it’s a secret. there’s no pride in his knowledge, just worry and fatigue. “i know.”


	21. good byes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt by anon: "What if the night before the expedition to Shinganshine Erwin asked Levi if he would remember him even after he'd died"

they both know.

levi packs his final shirt into his rucksack and looks around his room. it’s not much of a room, but it’s more than what he had six years ago. he has so much more now. so much more to lose.

he enters erwin’s room and places his rucksack on the floor. erwin is still out making final preparations for when they leave in the morning. he may be in his office or out in the stables or discussing final plans with hange. levi insisted in being involved, but erwin equally insisted that he wasn’t. “go to bed, levi. we need your strength.”

“what about yours?”

he avoids answering him, demanding an answer as to why the final cart hasn’t been loaded by a new recruit from the military police. the recruit stutters an answer, but erwin is already gone. away from him. away from them.

he corners him again in the mess hall. erwin never eats in the mess hall, but levi had checked everywhere else. erwin sees him, diverts his eyes back to his plate, and scarfs down the last bit of food before standing up and depositing his plate with the kitchen staff. levi loses sight of him outside the building.

he sits at the chair in erwin’s room, arms folded across his chest and head slumping. he’s facing the door, so he can see his commander immediately when he enters. he doesn’t sleep in beds unless it’s with him. erwin’s bed doesn’t feel right without him.

the smell of firewood is heavy in the air when erwin returns. it’s on his skin and in his hair and it’s the thing that wakes levi from his sleep. “where have you been?” he says groggily.

erwin loosens his bolo tie with his one remaining hand and does not answer.

they both know.

one of those rousing speeches. do it for humanity. do it for your family. dedicate your hearts. thank you for your service.

he speaks in a way that it touches everybody. the bonfires in the courtyard dance red against his face and hollow his eyes. he looks like a demon kissing hell, and his soldiers are scared enough to follow–because they’ve never seen an angel and figure this is the next best thing.

“will you remember me?” erwin says. it’s frank and honest and broken, and it’s a thing they aren’t supposed to say, but they leave for shinganshina tomorrow and even men can break. even erwin can break.

“what?”

“when i die.”

levi watches him carefully. the answer seems so obvious; yes, of course. the thought of losing erwin haunts him every day, and thinking about it now, in all its finality, wrings his throat out like a rag. 

“i will remember you.” erwin says. he’s struggling to unlatch his harness. it’s something they had worked on together, erwin can do this now, but in this moment, he can’t. his fingers shake, and he can’t quite look at levi. and levi misses those eyes on him now, let alone in some god awful future where they never open again.

“erwin.” it’s a warning, because they can’t do this. not today. not now. they never could, but especially not now.

they both know.

“i apologize. for everything.” erwin sighs out of his nose and pats his hand on chest, too frustrated with getting his harness off and sits on the edge of the bed. his fingers clench between his legs as he stares off into the floor.

levi rises, and he can’t believe he’s doing this. it will get them both killed, in body and mind. but he has to do it. erwin has to lead, and he can see the cracks breaking into his stone. “i love you.” he says, staring down at the top of erwin’s head. his jaw sets tight, and the words sounds so ugly coming from his own voice. he’s never heard them before, and wishes so badly that he had swallowed them instead.

erwin doesn’t look up. lets the molten gold of levi’s words sink within the breaks of his soul and harden him into a whole piece again. he brings his hand to his face and his shoulders shudder once before he sets it to rest between his legs again. he nods shallowly.

they both know erwin will die. 

“i know.”

levi wants him to say it back, but he knows. he knows erwin loves him too, and he feels his own spirit crumble under the fissure of impending loss. how did he get here. how did he did he let this happen…

they both know.


	22. erwin wins the serum bowl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt from abbysucks. erwin gets the serum.

“levi!” hange shouts, screams it even, their voice cracking in a shriek.

it’s so big. it towers taller than eren’s titan, its big foot smashing into the building across the street. it swings a big arm and levi has to roll out of the way, and falls off of the roof and onto his back on the ground below. the wind is knocked out of him, and there’s stars in front of his eyes. he coughs back air into his lungs, warily gets back onto his feet and draws his swords from his scabbards before firing an anchor into the building across from him.

the titan is attracted to moving targets. things that have a pulse above a flutter, breathing steadier than hagged rasps. it gets a hold of connie and crushes him in one flex of his hand. levi hears eren screaming, sees the lightening crash, and he knows eren can’t shift again. not this soon.

“levi!” levi hears hange again, and he’s swimming in his own head as he swings up onto a dilapidated clock tower. 

its eyes are still so blue, as if they’re windows straight into the quiet sky behind his head. its muscular, blond haired, and his teeth gnaw through his own cheeks as he swallows down the soldier. 

hange lands next to him, misses a step and stumbles, their depth perception already faltering. “he’s not going for bertholdt.” they say matter-of-factly.

“he’s not moving. we kinda took that away from him.”

“yes.” hange looks as eren’s titan tries to ram into the bigger titan, but he’s only half formed, his muscles half their mass, his body half his regular size. mikasa is swinging around and trying to cut through its bulky arms. its skin is thick, just like in life, and her blades break against it.

“what do we do?” levi asks, because his commander is here, and he wants to hear what he would tell him to do.

“we don’t have enough supplies. he’s going to kill eren if we don’t do something.”

“stupid fucking _brat_.” levi spits. it’s always about eren. he hopes the titan eats him.

“we have to, levi.”

“no.”

“ _you have to_.”

“ _no_.” he looks at hange, eyes narrow and his jaw tight. “don’t you _dare_ ask me to do that.”

“i’m ordering you to, captain.”

levi swallows thick. he sucks in air through his nose. he holds fast to the tower, hoping that the titan will turn its head and consume bertholdt. just end this yourself. snap out of it. for me. for _us._

“he’ll kill eren, levi. you know i don’t want you to do this either, but we need him. erwin would agree with me.”

and levi wants to stick hange with the end of his snapblade, but he can’t, because he knows… he knows they’re right. the warriors still wanted eren and whatever his commanding abilities provided to them. they had to use his skin hardening skills to repair wall maria. they needed him immediately. erwin lost his fucking arm for that kid.

bastards. all of them.

he bites his lips and fires an anchor toward the titan. he flies past jean, bleeding and broken on the ground. he may still be breathing. he might survive. eren’s titan is laying limp on a pile of rubble and the big titan is stomping near him, ready to crush him. levi lands a grapple into the titan’s forehead and his boot soles land on its cheek. he looks into one of the big eyes, can see every wisp of his iris like a galaxy in a night sky. 

“erwin.” he says. “erwin!” he shouts. he sees the pupil dilate, and thinks it’s a sign of recognition, until a big hand comes to try go grab him.

“captain!” mikasa calls. she’s on a roof next to him, and she flies in the way and knocks them both away from erwin’s hand. 

levi rotates midair and anchors into erwin’s shoulder and swings around and up until he’s several meters above erwin’s titan. he refires his grapples on either side of erwin’s nape, readies both of his blades. one back handed, the other standard, and his pulls the triggers to reel him into the body. he spins, feels his heart fly up into his throat, and he lets a scream so loud fling from his throat as his blades hit and slices away the chunk of flesh from erwin’s nape.

he’s still screaming when he lands. it’s loud and echoes down the streets of rubble, calls up to the heavens as erwin’s body falls behind him. tears stream down his face, and he can’t stop screaming. his throat hurts, but it keeps coming. long, hard, until he falls to the ground, erwin’s blood evaporating from his clothes and his skin. “fuck!” he shouts, and it dissolves into more screams and his heart hurts so much it could burst. he leans to the ground and he smashes his head into the dirt below him. over and over and over. his fingers dig into his biceps and he just wants to tear himself apart. he doesn’t deserve to live anymore.

hange lands next to him, studies him from afar. now is not the time to comfort. now is the time to observe.  
  
levi pulls a broken snapblade out and goes to turn it on himself, but hange is on him before he can.  
  
“don’t.”  
  
“fuck you!” he gurgles through bubbles of sorrow. he resists against hange and he can feel the steel against his belly.

“it was a gamble. erwin would understand.”

levi coughs, drool and snot and tears and dirt turning him into an ugly and pathetic thing. “don’t talk about him… like… he’s gone.”

“live for him so he’ll never be, levi.”

levi sucks in air, sobs out again as he drops his blade and crumples back down into the ground. 

he cries until he can’t anymore, erwin’s body evaporating into the shinganshina sky behind him.


	23. desperate grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: desperate grief
> 
> "Ddo you think during these 4 years Levi's gotten tall blonde men to do it with him, from behind, so that for just one moment he can let his imagination run wild and almost pretend it's a certain pair of hands that's touching him while THAT voice whispers sweet nothings in his hair? One day he gets so into his own delusion that he ends up moaning one name before he can stop himself"

levi presses a thumb into the corner of his eye as he leans into the bar table. he rounds his hand on his third glass of whiskey–dry, hard, and smooth. the bartender adverts his eyes and nods as levi slams the liquor down his throat and demands another.

he finds time to be a funny thing. it has acquired him a taste for liquor and the drunkenness that follows. he has a particular fondness to sleeping hours past sunrise, in a bed, under blankets. he hurts more, skips more training sessions to the point that new recruits think he’s retired. where hange stops even knocking on his door to rise him for classes, meetings, eating. because they know… it has been two years… two horrible, shitty years… and levi’s done enough.

he’s been eyeing a tall blond man in the corner of the bar for at least an hour. maybe two. time is a funny thing, and he’s not sure how long he’s been here, or if its really only been three drinks. but he has a pocket of coin, and he figures if he pays the man, it will mean less. he can demand more. 

he drops two silvers onto the table in front of the man. he looks up, and his eyes are all wrong, brown like shit and narrow like he has a million shady secrets he’s only just barely keeping inside. but he’s tall, and built, and blond, and levi is so desperately lonely that he doesn’t fucking care right now.

“do you know who i am?”

the man looks at him up and down. “no,” he says after a slight hesitation. he knows, but he’s smart. their secret will be safe enough with him. the man behind a legend may break and dissolve, but he’s still a legend nonetheless.

they make their way to an alleyway outside the bar. it’s dirty and smells like piss, and normally levi would be disgusted, but time is a funny thing. he is unbuckling his belt and pulling his civilian attire pants down until they fall to his ankles. he explains the rules. “don’t fucking talk to me. don’t look at me. don’t try to do anything else but fuck me.” he plants his hands on the wall and adjusts his position, his cock flaccid between his legs. “and absolutely _do not kiss me_.”

it’s been years, and this is the first time he allowed himself this disgusting act of disloyalty. he didn’t even allow his own hand to take a claim of his passion. he had given it soley to him ten years ago, but now he can’t hold it in anymore. he misses him so much it burns in his belly and threatens tears against his eyes, and he just wants to release it all until he’s a piece of human trash piled in the corner, spit on and scoffed at by the ones he swore to protect. he deserves it.

the man’s big, and he’s so tight around him, that the tears do start to come. his nails catch onto edges of bricks and peel back as he presses his forehead roughly into the wall. he moans loudly, feels his erection growing as he thinks of the places they used to go. all the ways they tried to express their expressionless love in a time where the bruises that branded his skin were much deeper in color, were much more tender to touch. rainstorms and thick tree branches. on their backs in the hay of the stables. in his bed, on his chair, straddling and watching. eyes that mapped his contours, his skin, told him stories of how he never looked at anything else like he did at levi. strong hands touching him, worshiping him, coaxing his heart to open and sing through his mouth until they were swallowed between lips that spoke patterns of ‘i love you’ without kicking up a voice to actually mutter it.

he cries, and the tears are hot, but time is a funny thing. it feels good, but he hates it. there’s a tension in his body, coiled up like a spring, and he quakes under his own pathetically weak knees. he wails against the cold stone, his cheek scraping against it as the man seizes his hips with hands that don’t fit quite right around him. but he slams his prostate, and levi moves back against him to finish this. he’s too disgusted in himself. this is wrong. he’s wrong.

levi comes against the red bricks, splattered like paint and running down the wall like blood. he doesn’t let the man finish, pushes him off with a drunken imprecision as he pulls his pants up and buckles. running a hand through his hair, he slinks off, nearly tripping over his own feet, without saying a word. 

he’s wrong. he’s disgusting. he’s a disappointment.

his feet shuffle along dirt until he finally makes it back to headquarters. somehow. it’s late, but he doesn’t care. stairs are too difficult so he sits on the ones leading up to his quarters and rests his head on the cool stone of the wall. his eyes are open, vacant, red and puffy from tears that had been waiting too long to fall. he’s muttering his name without knowing it, like a prayer.

“erwin…. erwin…” his eyes flutter, but they can’t close. “erwin.”  
  
“levi.” it’s hange, but their voice sounds so distant and far away that he doesn’t realize how close they are until they’re in front of his face. “come on. i can’t have you out here like this.”

“erwin?” he says confusedly, and he wonders why his ass and his head and his heart hurt so damn much when erwin’s right here. he should feel good. so good. warm and needed and happy.

“no,” they say softly. they place a hand on his shoulder, and he shudders against it. it doesn’t feel right. it’s not his.

“don’t touch me.”

“then get up.”

“don’t tell me what to do…” his words are slow, but they drawl out into slurs. “four… eyes.”

“don’t make me carry you.”

levi makes a face, tuts a puff of air out of the corner of his mouth. “i got it.” he stands up, but sways heavily forward and into hange. he takes the assistance of hange’s arm around his waist, but it doesn’t feel right. it’s too small, his hip locking into a place too low, the smell too different, the touch too distant. they make it to his room, and he’s deposited on his chair, his head falling to rest on the bookshelf next to it. “hange.” he says softly.

hange sits on the edge of levi’s bed and pulls their boots off. they sleep here more often now to make sure they don’t lose ‘humanity’s strongest’ to his own vomit pooled in the back of his throat. “yes, levi?”

“i love him.”

hange nods. “i know you do.”

“i did something.”

“i know you did.”

“i’m sorry.”

hange shakes their head and leans back on the bed. they sleep little now too, haunted by a past that stole so much from them. stole erwin from them as well. “go to sleep, levi.”

“i love him…”

“go to sleep.”

time is a funny thing, and it’s a thing that becomes so lucidly intangible that levi forgets to care at all.


	24. adoration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: adoration
> 
> "Eruri Prompt: Levi likes to touch Erwin. He can spend an hour just stroking his hand, feeling each vertebra through the shirt or running his fingers through the blonde locks as Erwin tries to catch up on paper work."

levi’s read the books on erwin’s bookshelves. well, some of them anyway. when he cleans he finds the ones that have their spines ripped out, the contents replaced with untitled scriptures of life outside the walls. literature about things people aren’t supposed to question, aren’t supposed to know. levi doesn’t ask about the books, or how erwin got them, but he loves that they’re there. he sets them back on the shelf, a gentle smile at his lips, thinking of how delightfully sneaky his commander is.

he thinks of mountains when he touches erwin’s spine. he pulls at erwin’s collar, the man adjusting his neck to allow levi to touch him easier. the bump of his nape peaks on his index finger, and he leaves it there, applying gentle pressure in small circles until erwin moans softly. erwin’s voice vibrates against his bones, his head turning and capturing lips with his own. they kiss slowly, tongues rolling against each other like swelling waves, tasting each other like it’s their last meal. most times they’re in such a rush, and levi truly relishes these moments, the ones that let levi melt into erwin like ice capped mountains in the face of spring. his fingers stay still, trailing lazily up the summit of erwin’s neck as he takes erwin’s bottom lip between his teeth.

when they’re in bed, after they have spent themselves emotionally and physically, levi stays awake. he traces fingers along calf muscles, imagines them as river gorges cutting through lines of trees. so strong and unerring. he traces the muscle down to his ankle, palms his calloused heel in his hand and massages it as erwin snorts a sound in his sleep. levi smiles, because he can smile around erwin, especially like this. alone in the night, in a time where they can try, and fail, to deny themselves selfish thoughts of having moments like this forever. 

he leaves his heart on erwin through soft kisses, flowing up the stream of blue veins in erwin’s feet, to his knees, to the line joining hip and abdomen, up to his chest. he kisses the spot above his heart, feels it rumbling like earthquakes, feels it warm like lava as he presses his chest to it, feels the  _ba-dum_  resounding his own _ba-dum_. he kisses the cliff of erwin’s jaw, until erwin’s ocean like eyes open behind beach grass lashes. he leans down and kisses levi, asks him what he’s up to, but isn’t upset when he receives no answer. just another kiss.

erwin’s hands are large, dry and cracked like tundras. his nails are short, his cuticles red and torn. the veins on the back of his hands are large and puffy, his knuckles scraped and bruised. erwin lets levi’s hand linger on his when he gives him his evening tea. lets him hold it for minutes, for an hour, as levi’s thumb trails across each perfectly perfect imperfection. he smiles over at levi when he takes erwin’s hand to his mouth to kiss it. kisses each pad of his finger with loving hesitation, nips his pinky between his teeth before erwin leans to do the same to levi’s lips.

they smile into each other, their lips falling together like drifting icebergs, like river deltas, like continental shelves. levi has erwin mapped, has each centimeter of him plotted and named and categorized. he is a treasure. a rarity. a thing to be feared, respected, and acknowledged like the secret heretic books upon his commander’s shelves.


	25. depression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for snowtoes. prompt: depressedwin
> 
> "Have you already written about depressed Erwin? Can I please please pretty please get a link? I might have missed it and I kinda need it rn. Thank you, Ack!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (i appear to only write depressed levi, so this was an interesting prompt!)

years have a way of making nothing into something. hard barrack beds become comfortable. soldiers become friends. 

nothing quite hits erwin as much as mike’s death. it hurts more than his phantom limb, and he tries his best to push on past his grief. but it’s only been a week since he regained consciousness, a few days since he learned that titans are humans, and he finds that time is a thing that reveals truths if he allows it to.

and it’s a good feeling, briefly. he loses himself in his own rapture, pride and happiness swelling in his chest before wilting like a flower inside of his rib cage. levi looks at him, cautions him with his name, and it sobers him. brings him back down to earth, to a reality where his men die by strangers turned into mindless, pointless monsters.

he says he owes them more than his arm. internally, he knows he owes them his life a thousand times over

two decades in the survey corps is a rarity, a fluke, a blip in the system. mike was never supposed to be his friend. and truthfully, erwin always thought he would die before mike. mike was the strongest of them after all, and commanders never lived long after they took the bolo. the weight of all his men, all of their sacrifices, all of the things they learned along the way presses down into him, makes it harder for him to breathe as he tries to find rest at his desk. 

but damn, if mike is the heaviest.

erwin rises from his chair, dizzy from pain, and holds his hand on his desk until he stops the room from spinning. he leaves his office and goes to the armory. nobody’s there, and that’s good. time multiplies itself by ten, and it takes him a whole hour to get his scabbards attached to his thighs. he squeezes the unhooked trigger in his hand, feels its awkwardness in his grip and wonders if he’ll ever even be able to fly again. he attaches the cables, checks the gas, hears it wheeze out, deflated and exhausted like him. he goes to the stables, looks at the saddles and the bridles and decides that walking will get him there faster.

he leaves headquarters, the moon shining high in the sky and lighting his way along the edges of the wall. he looks up, feels how tall 50 meters is, and how devastatingly horrendous his bones would break if he fell from it. can he fly, he wonders again. a bird with its wings clipped is not a bird at all. 

he aims his anchor and lets it grapple somewhere halfway up the wall. he makes the calculations. his weight being supported by one grapple is a considerable risk, but he wants to be up there. he reels himself up, his feet kicking off the wall as the gear sputters despite itself. it hiccups once, causing erwin to cough out a sound of surprise as he falls a meter down. he looks at the ground, lets it sober him.

damn, he’s high up.

he makes it to the top, struggles over the edge, undignified and on his knees. he rolls onto his back and lets his legs hang off the edge, and he feels so close to the stars that he tries to reach out and touch them.

there used to be a time when he owned any type of purity. where happiness was found between the covers of new books and a smile on his father’s face. as he grew, he tried to deny himself all of that. he feigned a smile when nile told him about his first child with marie. he tried not to gravitate toward mike’s stoic strength. he didn’t want to fall in love with levi.

there’s the distinct whizzing sound of a reel and the soft patter of boots as they land gracefully on the top of the wall. they shuffle briefly and stop.

he wonders how many more of his men he can see die. humanity can only hold him up for so long, the cruel words spitting at him as they go outside of the walls, weathering him away like stones in a river. he’s replaceable, a fluke, a blip in the system. his expiration date came and passed. why is he still here when mike isn’t?

he struggles to sit up, his hand gripping to the edge of the wall. being up here this high feels different now. he’s less in control now with only one arm, and everything feels so vast when all he wants to be is swallowed by it. he turns his head, sees a silhouette and he lets his head turn back and hang.

there is going to be no reprieve from his hell, not until he is dead. but jumping from this wall is not how to end it. only one commander in the whole of the survey corps history died by his own hand. he would not become the second. not after he had been standing on so many corpses to get here.

when erwin’s wrong, levi is right. standing there in his protective silence, guarding erwin from himself in a time of lost desperation. this isn’t the answer. don’t die like this. i’ll never forgive you.

erwin nods, but he doesn’t stop hating how he is the one that survived. always the one to survive.


	26. going home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: going home
> 
> "I had a dream a new chapter of SnK was released and Levi spent most of the chapter saying he 'wanted to go home' and he looked really depressed and I woke up really sad :( I miss Erwin and I miss my babies being there for each other"

the underground used to be home.

flocke demeans him in front of his subordinates. if it wasn’t for him, erwin would still be alive. he doesn’t fight it, hears his own thoughts flicking off the young soldier’s tongue. he watches eren defend armin, quick like a snake agitated in the grass, wonders if erwin would defend his actions in the same way. levi hangs his head, goes to the corner of the room and can’t think of anything else but flocke’s words. his words. his pain. it takes all he has to not regret what he did, but when he has no place to go now, he starts to stumble. starts to regret. “i want to go home.” he says to nobody.

levi fells the final titan, and the blood is still searing on his skin. he looks around at his comrades, at faces he doesn’t know. they’re garrison soldiers, they aren’t his family. though, he lost the last remaining piece of his family six months ago. he looks at the titan, a sadness boiling in his lungs like liquid iron, and says the words quietly so nobody can hear. “i want to go home.”

they make it to the ocean. the air is heavier here some how, filled with salt and damp with fulfilled dreams. and he wants to be happy like them, but it reminds him of the sewers. reminds him of salted meat. he wishes erwin was here to see this–maybe then he could see further than the tall grass carpeting the sand dune. “i want to go home.” and hange looks at him but doesn’t say anything.

he sits on the couch in hange’s office. this used to be home. used to feel familiar, like the cold, dark walls of the underground. but better. complete. intentional. tea and food and gentle touches… talking about nothing, saying nothing, talking about everything. work and birthdays and cleaning and kisses. levi gets up and exits the office as hange walks in. they don’t belong to this, to him, to anything. he slams the back of his fist against the wall when he leaves, grits his teeth and sighs out his nose.

he has no home to return to, and it sinks in his gut every goddamn day. he tries to raise his head, but the only thing fit enough for him is the dirt on the floor beneath him.


	27. friendzoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: friendzoning.
> 
> "Me and some friends were discussing and wanted to know your opinion. What are the chances of Erwin friendzoning Levi?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (i can't believe two people were talking about something and then wanted /my/ opinion. are you dudes crazy? *big hearts*)

erwin joined the survey corps for one specific reason: to bring freedom to humanity. there were other reasons, ones he dared to call selfish, the ones that keep him awake at night counting every face that died before him. he apologizes to them like a prayer, certain that they will be the ones smiting him when the time comes. he explains to them, tries to reason with them, that somehow his goals meant more than their lives. and he finds himself in a feedback loop, because his selfish goals are just as selfish as the need to be free, and it always spirals him into a fitful night of sleep, brimming with nightmares too real to be dreams.

it’s lonely. and when his mind doesn’t stop chattering in voices that aren’t his own, he finds himself going insane. he takes solace in mike sometimes. they’re squad leaders, and they’ve been friends since training. he’s quiet and wise, and although he surpasses them all in strength, he takes erwin as gentle as one would need to soothe a mind that is always busy fighting demons.

he nearly loses mike once. a titan grabbed him by his leg and had him dangling like a chicken… he was even bawking like one too. and goddammit, he was too far away, and erwin’s twine was too short, his reel too weak. luckily, a squad mate came in the knick of time, cut the titan’s fingers off cleanly and precisely like a surgeon, and that’s when erwin came to find respect and admiration for hange zoe.

but he felt sick all day after that. he vomited three times at base. didn’t eat for days. mike came to his room, his arms folded over his chest, quiet and head down. “we can’t do this anymore.” he says, but erwin can hear the hurt on his voice too.

erwin knows they can’t. he can have friends. he can care. but he can’t let himself feel like that ever again. that fear… the kind that tosses desire for humanity into the fire to save one life… he couldn’t have that.

if he were to ever be commander, that is.

so when levi enters his life, it’s desperately difficult. levi is a feral beauty. a man that choses to fear nothing, holds his sword to his neck and makes him bleed, makes his heart beat out onto his collar so fast he could very well die out there under the rain. and he watches him grow, he sees the respect and feeds back into it, and it takes very little for erwin to become infatuated with him. 

there’s nobody like levi.

mike comes to him again. cool eyes set on him and it’s a warning, not a conversation. “you can’t do this.”

“do what?”

“levi.”

erwin rolls his shoulders, keeps his eyes on his paperwork as he scrawls more down onto his parchment. “is that all, mike?”

“yes.”

the door closes, and erwin runs his hand down his face. he sighs out and looks at the empty couch. it had barely been an hour, but he could still taste levi on his tongue. could still feel the man’s erection in his hand, could still hear his name panted out between shallow, hurried breaths. he tries to tell himself it won’t happen again. he told himself that the last time… and the time before that.

if he was smarter, if he was wiser, he would say no. that freedom is more important than loneliness and pain. but he rationalizes it. because if it’s one person he can allow himself to love it’s levi. he’s the man that he trusts will bring his dreams to him, and he will be the savior that calms the voices in his head long enough to breathe happiness in small blissful doses.


	28. jealousy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: jealousy
> 
> "Could you write about Erwin's struggle of trying to decide between Levi and Mike? They both want to be more than friends with their commander."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (i went a little off prompt... i don't necessarily think it was a struggle to decide between levi and mike... erwin just might have been consumed by his own obsession and then fell into his infatuation with levi, leaving mike behind, whether intentional or not.)

mike comes from a farm and is the eldest of six. when he was a child, he used to envy his younger siblings. they got to stay inside and help churn butter, weave blankets, and prep dinner while his skin grew dark out on the fields. his muscles ached, grew large and toned from plows, and he seemed to dream every day about days where he could sit at the pond and skip rocks.

jealousy reeks, like old blood sitting on the chopping block, cooking under the summer sun. like blood coughed into the cup of his little sister’s hand, the smell of mucus curdling through her throat as she rasps out strangled breaths. one of his brothers tries to wipe the red from her lips, tries to gather the pearls of sweat from her brow at the edge of a clean cloth, but she passes before she can whisper a bit of thanks.

he swallows it, because the real injustice is having her taken away from him. that he ever felt jealous at all. little iris and her beautiful dusty blonde hair. he cries into the bracelet of tweed she had made him, ties it around his oversized wrist and holds his hand against it when he tells his mother he’s going to join the military.

“the military police?”

“yeah.” because they make the most. they live the longest. he could pay for the medicine this time. he can put more grains on their table during winter. he can protect them.

“jeremy isn’t old enough to tend the fields yet.”

“i can wait.” but not for long.

she looks out past him, past his head and out the window at their small plot of land. it was small, but it was theirs. she nods, but doesn’t look at him. she doesn’t look at him much after that day.

he joins training when he’s 18. the first day of training is tough, but not tough enough to go home. he’d been beaten by years of hard labor, has enough stamina to outrun all of the other cadets until the sunsets. except one: a blond haired boy of 16, eyes wide and curious, but darkened by something.

“mike.” he says, under a heaving breath. he holds out his hand, and the young man accepts.

“erwin.”

they eat in the mess hall, and it becomes a habitual thing. they learn about each other over watery mashed potatoes and steamed carrots. erwin lived with some extended relatives until he was old enough to join the military on his own. he’s an educated man, was accepted to the best schools inside sina but rejected them. “i want to join the survey corps.”

“you what?”

“there’s answers out there.” and he says it like that statement in itself is a secret.

“what kind of answers?”

“the walls. the titans.” erwin’s eyes are focused on his plate, and it takes mike to cough to snap him from his trance. “where did you say you were from again?”

“the farmlands outside of utopia.”

erwin nods. “it’s beautiful there.”

mike’s curious about erwin, about his brain, about the things he muses about when he thinks they’re alone. the things he says, he should be imprisoned for life. but he trusts mike, and in turn, mike trusts erwin. it becomes a rarity for them to be apart. rumors start to spread.

they start to go to the bar every friday during their second year, and mike finds jealously to smell like rum and ale. she hangs on erwin’s arm, drunk, red-faced, and giggling. and mike has to pry her off as erwin starts to drunkenly tell one of his stories again.

“not here, erwin.” mike hisses. he drags the man by his arm out into the cold night air. what relief he had from being away from marie only surged with his anxiety of erwin blurting out heretic words to a crowd that didn’t understand.

“mike,” erwin drawls. “i think she likes me.” he grins big and leans heavily into mike’s chest, and jealousy smells like a drunk, sweating man two seconds away from losing it all.

he smells like something… something different. mike returns back to base, too frustrated to deal with erwin’s drunken escapades one night. he sits in his bunk, his head hanging and knees twitching, waiting patiently for his bunkmate to return. he feels stupid for leaving him there–erwin doesn’t know how to control himself when he’s drunk. and when he stumbles back into the hall after curfew, his finger pressed to his lip in sign to keep quiet, he crawls up to his bunk to sleep without a single word.

mike learns two years later, after they graduate, after they both accept the wings, that what he smelled on erwin was sex. because he smells it on him now, his ass arching into mike’s hips, his mouth gaping and looking up at him with eyes that make mike feel uncomfortable. like maybe four years together was too soon to find love. that two expeditions outside of the walls shouldn’t have scared them enough into the stables at midnight to fuck each other until the horses whinnied for them to shut up.

“mike.” erwin says breathily, and he collapses into his cloak.

“erwin.” mike leans down, kisses the points between his shoulder blades and fucks him so slowly it draws a whimper from erwin’s throat that sounds so sweet it could smell like honey.

erwin’s grown, has seen things that can be changed to save men’s lives. becomes insubordinate, fights against higher command, gets into shadis’ face. mike takes erwin outside, throws his shoulders into the stone of the building. his nose flares, and he stares into those eyes that have been nothing but anchors for him, but they were drifting now. they were looking past him. just like his mother’s.

“knock it off, erwin.”

“he’s a fucking dumbass, mike.”

“if you want to make a difference, you can’t do it that way.”

“fuck him! men are _dying_  because of him!”

“you’re smarter than that. i know you are.”

erwin finally looks at him. nods. he pries mike’s hands off of him, and the first time in eight years, they don’t eat together.

it’s on their tenth expedition that shit goes wrong.  they’ve both become squad leaders, but shadis has yet to use the long distance scouting formation erwin has been proposing. their squads converge by accident, a titan comes out of nowhere and snatches mike off of his horse. he bangs his hand on the side of a giant finger. he manages to wiggle free enough to cut through the rest of the hand, but doesn’t grapple fast enough when he’s set free. he plummets into the hands of a three meter, his ankle cracking as it snaps back all his weight when its grabbed. he cries out, tries to swipe his blade, but it had snapped through the bone of the last titan.

iris, he thinks of iris when the titan opens its jaws to eat him down. he thinks of his mom. he thinks of erwin.

“mike!” he can hear erwin’s voice, but it’s too far away. he wants to say his name back but he forgets what it is. screams out instead as he smells the rancid fragrance of melted flesh filtering out of the monster’s mouth.

his back hits the ground so hard he can’t even catch the air to make a sound. he rolls onto his side, confused but alive. footsteps lands next to him, and another.

“squad leader, are you all right?”

“hange.” he hear’s erwin. “thank you. thank you so much.”

but things are different then. from that moment, erwin avoids mike. they don’t eat together, and erwin finds himself in the library until well after mike goes to bed. jealousy smells like old musty books and aged brandy.

mike comes to him one night, tells him they’re over. as if they were anything to begin with, he supposes. but it hurts. erwin is looking past him, never looks at him anymore. he’s too focused on shadis’ job, on saving men, on killing titans, on finding answers. mike doesn’t fit there anymore. he probably never did.

he holds the edge of his fist to his forehead, breathes out once, and moves on.

he’s the strongest. they tell him so. he has the most kills. is one of the longest surviving members of the survey corps. they’re deemed veterans on their fifteenth expedition. he wants the title to feel something, he wishes it would send more money home. he wishes erwin would look _at_  him again.

four years later, jealousy smells like shit and dirt. he has a small man’s head in a puddle, the thug’s breath sputtering angrily against the water. his eyes are like pinholes, silver like the moon, and he’s so strong for a small little rat. he presses the man’s head deeper into the mud. he sees how erwin is looking at him. he knows that look.

“stay still, shithead.”

“ _fuck you.”_  he spits, but it just dirties his face more. so filthy. such fucking filth.

“mike.” erwin says, and it takes a moment for mike to register. he pulls back, let’s the small man sit up. lets him say his name. 

levi.

the ratboy’s friends die, and he’s impressive when he’s broken. he’d killed so many titans in his rage that he created his own clouds toward heaven. the man holds a blade to erwin’s throat, and mike goes to stop him, and erwin looks _at_  him, but it’s so mike can give him levi. mike stands breathing heavily, feeling so angry that this little shit could threaten erwin like this. like they needed such a rogue to threaten their ranks.

“fight with the survey corps, levi. humanity needs your skill!”

jealousy smells like blood baking in the sunlight. jealousy smells like shit and dirt. jealousy smells like levi, and it takes mike much longer than he cares to admit to loose the scent from the depth of his nostrils.


	29. jealousy (reprise)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a self induced addition to 'jealousy'

people call levi erwin’s dog, but mike knows that’s not how it is–not how it feels. when erwin has his sights on you, you are a treasure.

there’s a shared smile. erwin bends over and touches lips with levi, and erwin startles away from levi when he notices they aren’t alone. he tugs on the bottom of his uniform jacket and turns to take a bridle down from the rack. they’re both blushing, looking half their age–despite the shit they’ve done and the horrors they’ve seen.

they’re walking back to erwin’s office and mike watches as erwin instinctively goes to place his hand on the small of levi’s back. erwin’s fingers twitch in, curl into a fist, and fall back to his side. mike shakes his head.

there’s longing glances, small whispers of smiles between hints of endearment. they may look like soliders to some, but to mike they’re so fucking obvious it drives him insane.

“it’s ok.” mike says.

“hm?” erwin turns to him. there’s a clammer of steel on steel as they watch the new recruits demonstrate themselves to their commanding officers.

“you don’t need to pretend. i know.”

erwin stares at mike for a moment longer, his mouth falling ajar before nodding away his shock. “i suppose you’re the last person i could expect to hide this from.”

“yup.”

“i’m sorry.”

mike shrugs, puts a hand on erwin’s shoulder and squeezes it. it wasn’t easy getting here, but his commander seems more stable now than he ever had been. levi is helping the survey corps more than he may have ever imagined. “you’re a good man, erwin.”

and something changes in erwin’s face, like he’s heard something he’s never been told before. like mike had just stuck him with the point of a knife and twisted. “mike.”

“take it easy, commander. see you at dinner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i forgot i wanted to write about erwin hesitating to put his hand on levi in front of mike... like he needs to ask permission to move on.


	30. lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: lost
> 
> "eruri modern au: they go hiking and end up getting lost. very, very lost."

“oh no.” erwin mutters. 

levi stops, his hand falling onto the trunk of a tree. “what.” 

erwin plays with the waterproof map in his hand, folds it and unfolds it as he buries his head deeper in it. “nothing… nothing.”

“uh-uh. what’s up?” levi steps back, adjusting the backpack on his shoulders. they’d been hiking for over an hour. they’d read online that it should only take them two hours to complete. 

erwin looks up at levi, his eyes wide and lined with horror. “we were following the trail.” he turns his head backward then forward. “i haven’t seen an orange marker in awhile.”

levi’s eyes narrow, and he steps heavily toward erwin. “lemme see.” he pulls the map out of erwin’s hand, squints his eyes at it to try to make sense of their trail.

erwin turns the map in levi’s hands so it’s right-side up.

“we’re supposed to be on orange. the only other trails are blue and red.”

“have you seen those either?” levi’s eyes rove over the map, but he can’t make sense of it and shoves it back into erwin’s chest.

“no.”

“it took you a fuckin’ half hour to say something?”

erwin frowns. “i guess i got distracted.”

“we’re in the fuckin’ mountains of pennsylvania. you do realize we can get lost, right? that like, we can get eaten by bears or something.”

“i’d be more worried about snakes, if i were you.”

“you’re kidding me, erwin.”

erwin runs his hand along the back of his neck. “i’ve hiked this trail so many times. how did i… we can head back. there’s enough of a trail here we can follow it back and get back on course.”

“what if we can’t?”

“then we’ll uh…” he pulls his backpack off and rummages through its big pocket. “shit.”

“what now?”

“i don’t have my compass.”

“erwwwiiinnnnn.”

“we can use the sun.”

“no. absolutely not.” levi pulls out his cellphone, turns on the screen, but sees he has no service. “god dammit. erwin!”

“i’m sorry!”

levi shakes his head. his hands are shaking, and he follows suit, pulls off his backpack to grab the most important thing inside of it: a pack of cigarettes. he takes one out and grabs the lighter from his pocket and lights it. he sucks in a breath and points this cigarette at erwin as he speaks, “figure it out. the sun is setting.”

erwin continues to rub his hand against the nape of his neck. “i know, i know.”

“knock it off. i fuckin’ hate when you do that.” he sucks in another breath and breathes out a cloud of smoke in an agitated sigh. “i was having a good time too.” erwin pulls his hand away from his neck, stands straight. levi looks at him up and down. 

and then erwin smiles.

“what?”

“you were having fun.”

“erwin.” levi warns. erwin laughs. he starts walking forward again, on the same trail they had been lost on. “where the fuck are you goin’?”

“i’m finishing the trail. are you coming with me?”

“aren’t we lost?”

“we’re almost done the loop. we’ll be back at the car soon. come on.”

levi stands there for a moment, flicks the end of his cigarette before holding it in his mouth as he shoulders his backpack back on. he can’t tell if he should be angry, frustrated, impressed, or amused. he settles on smiling, and lets himself enjoy nature by watching erwin’s ass as he hikes up the mountain trail.


	31. first kiss under the stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> extra dose of caffeine with espresso tea time! that sounds like a gross drink, tbh.
> 
> "Levi takes Erwin stargazing just like he would with Isabel and Farlan"  
> "How do you picture Erwin and Levi's first time/first kiss in canon?"

erwin falls off his horse and tumbles a few yards before his mind catches up. his right scabbard is decimated from where he landed on it, and he feels the bruise already forming up the muscles of his thigh. he gets on his knees, holds his body up with his arms, breathes out a breath that tastes like copper and drips red onto the grass. he looks up, shudders and withers at the sounds of the rear squads rushing past him.

his body is light, and he’s roughly piled onto the back of a dark horse. his head is swimming, but he’s trying to regain it. he’s commander, he needs to lead his men. he coughs as he takes the reign from the small but calloused hands behind him. he feels those hands secure on his hips, the body attached to them pushing closer to his back.

“i’ll fire a flare.”

erwin nods, kicks the horse’s ribs and they’re racing off. the black flare rockets into the sky above them.

“we’ll head toward the forest to regroup.” erwin says. it’s weak, and he doesn’t know if he said it loud enough over the sound of hooves on the ground, but the man responds a confirmation and fires another flare.

by the time they are safely in the trees, erwin has his mind back. him and levi are standing on a thick branch, watching as the last couple of squads make their way to the forest edge. erwin doesn’t look at levi when he says it, doesn’t even want to acknowledge that he has said it, but he could have died. so many times he could have died, and levi was always there to save him. “may i kiss you?”

levi looks up at him, eyes wide and disbelieving. they’re quiet as levi turns his attention back to the horizon, his arms folding over his chest as he says, “that’s inappropriate, commander.”

levi never calls erwin ‘commander’.

weeks pass and erwin can’t get the thought of kissing levi out of his head. he tries to figure out why it haunts him. like the memory of a taste that he craves, his stomach clenching whenever he sees levi with a hunger he can’t sate. he hasn’t longed for physical satisfaction in years, was too focused on dreams of bolo ties and 50 meter walls, open skies and vast plains. but levi was all of those things, tightly bound into a small package. muscles, grey eyes, fluid movements. strength so great he made erwin feel weak, small, defeated.

when he passes levi in the halls, he has to rub the back of his neck and avert his eyes. his strongest soldier has become a canker–turning his whole body into a weak spot prone and waiting for the quick killing slashes of levi’s snapblades.

he catches levi looking at him, at his lips, one day in training. erwin can’t help but smile a bit despite himself. he wonders briefly if levi has been struggling the same. stupidly, he figures he’ll try again.

they’re in town some spring day when returning from the capital. “would you like to get something to eat?” erwin asks.

levi shrugs. “i’m not really hungry.”

“you haven’t eaten all day.”

“what are you? my mother?”

erwin smiles, “i know a good place down this street. please.”

levi eyes him, pauses on erwin’s lips again, then shrugs. “fine.”

they sit and eat. they talk about work. who should be repositioned in the next expedition, who will still be on the mend, what they need in terms of supplies and expenses. levi chews with small bites, never overfills his mouth, and almost never eats with his bare hands. he finishes swallowing before he talks, using his hands to express his thoughts on their side formations. erwin nods quietly, pride seizing his chest, desire clawing at his stomach.

“that’s a good plan.” erwin says as they leave. “thank you.”

“seems obvious to me.” levi says. “surprised you didn’t think of it.”

“sometimes i get mixed up in my own mind.” _thinking of you_. “i am glad you could provide me an outside perspective.”

they round a corner and the street is empty. erwin is a commander, he knows opportunities when he sees them. he deploys his plan. “may i kiss you, levi?”

levi doesn’t pause this time, almost like he was expecting erwin to ask again. “not now.”

“my apologies.”

but… it wasn’t a no.

a week later, levi comes to his office in the middle of the night. erwin’s tired, his legs restless from being at his desk for the majority of the day. when he looks up, he feels the hunger in his belly, and it’s not just because he hasn’t eaten at all that day.

“put your shit down and come with me.” levi says.

“i haven’t finished…”

“if you aren’t on the roof in ten minutes, i’ll make sure you’re never able to use the mobility gear again.”

erwin nods, tries his best to hide a grin, and lets his captain leave. he finishes his sentence on the paper and replaces the cap on his ink well. he stretches his limbs as he stands up and hurries his way to the roof. levi’s waiting there, his back facing erwin as he sits over a parapet, his head turned up to the sky. erwin walks over quietly, sits on the edge of the wall facing the opposite way.

“hey.” levi says.

“good evening.” erwin says. he folds his arms and turns his head up. the sky is cloudless, the moon near full and shining bright against the twinkling stars. there’s a ghostly haze streaming between the constellations, and he finds himself feeling very small and weak again in levi’s presence.

“we never had anything like this down there.” levi says. “the first time we came up here, it hurt.”

erwin turns his head, searches levi’s profile. watches his lips. “it hurt?”

levi turns his head to look at erwin. “it’s just… big. i wanted everybody back home to see it.” he pulls his legs to his chest, his heels rocking him back and forth on the small parapet. he was inches away from toppling over the building, but levi’s always in control of his mobility. he’s a cat. a specter. “i miss it sometimes.”

“the underground?” erwin turns to lean on the stone ledge. “i suppose it’s home.” these moments, the ones where levi loosens up, shares parts of himself in exchange for erwin’s company, makes erwin feel different than he does on the battle field. he was needed there to lead, to protect, to rally. levi just wants him… here… with him.

“yeah.” levi turns to face erwin. “but i have a new home.” he searches erwin, seems to be boring deep into him, trying to pull his soul out from him, use it to lasso the stars down for them to share. “if you want to kiss me, just get it over with.”

erwin’s eyes grow wide, and he takes a step back. suddenly, having the question turned back on him made him feel disarmed. “what?”

“you’ve already asked twice.” levi adds under his breath, “and hundreds of times otherwise.”

“i apologize if i’ve made you uncomfortable.” erwin turns his head back up to the stars. “i only wish to kiss you if you would like to.”

“kiss me.”

erwin turns his gaze down from the sky, and over to levi. he’s standing on the parapet now. he towers over erwin, his shadow casting long against him, his features hidden by the dark of the night, the moon glowing around his edges. erwin feels so small, defeated, weak… but in an empowering and protected way. levi is the other side of him, the piece that makes him feel whole. unbroken. desirable as a man, not as a figure. erwin moves a step closer, and levi bends down to his level. erwin cups levi’s face in his hands, feels the soft skin against his calloused thumbs. levi steadies himself by placing his hands on erwin’s shoulders, sighs out softly into erwin’s face and it smells like tea and honey and erwin feels his heart flutter. 

he didn’t know that was a thing it could ever do.

“please.” levi asks.

erwin hesitantly touches their lips together, lets his eyes close as levi leans his weight into him. it’s warm and surprisingly soft. for a man with so many sharp edges, levi is soft as cotton and so remarkably beautiful. their lips move experimentally against each other as erwin runs his hand down to wrap around levi’s shoulders. levi goes to sit over the edge of the wall again, his lips never parting from erwin’s, his arms dragging erwin into him as he opens his mouth against the kiss. he accepts erwin’s tongue eagerly with a whimpering sound erwin has never heard from him. erwin falls between levi’s legs, their chests at equal heights, their bodies so close as they kiss slowly with waning hesitation, learning each other just as quickly as they always have.

erwin pulls away, his breath shaky and stolen and presses his forehead to levi’s. he tries to find words, wants to thank him for this gift, but he hesitates to feel worth. to not see it as a mistake.

“erwin.” levi says. erwin feels lips on his forehead. “thank you for letting me see the stars.”

erwin stares into levi’s chest, feels his breath catch in his own, before he takes levi’s lips again for so long that he sees stars behind his eyelids.


	32. distraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: distraction
> 
> "Honestly that Eruri content [from the first episode of season 2] looked like the opening line to all kinds of sexy fic"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh no, i accidentally capitalized!!!

There’s tension in the air that makes Levi restless. His knee still grants him a reminder of unanswered questions, of squad mates he couldn’t assist, of brash words that could have stayed off his tongue. There’s unrest, words of Wall Rose falling, and there’s only one person he wants to listen to now, only one person that can quell the uncomfortable and unfamiliar feeling of anguished fear that seems to have replaced the flesh upon his bones.

Levi turns the doorknob to Erwin’s office and enters. The young leader from the southern post is in the room and is mid sentence as Levi enters. He’s talking about the breach, but as a good soldier, he’s remarkably calm about it. Levi wonders how long he has been in the corps. Only men several year veterans have that kind of control.

Then again, recent events have a tendency to change people.

Levi tuts. “Those damn titans never give us a break.” He says, breaking the man’s sentence as Erwin looks on him. The conversation is on them now.

“Can you go?” Erwin asks. His eyes linger on Levi’s left knee. Levi hears the minute difference in his tone–recognizes the concern.

“Not like there’s much choice.”

“It was wise to have Squad Leader Mike watch the 104th.” The soldier interrupts. “I believe he can handle the situation.” He’s smiling, like he’s honored to even have Mike’s name leave his lips in the same room as the two most powerful people in the legion. 

Erwin turns his attention back out the window. “Yes. Let’s hope so.”

The soldier looks over at Levi. “Anything else?” Levi says to him.

“No, sir.”

“You can leave, then.” The man nods and Levi doesn’t watch him, waits for the sound of the door clicking shut before he lets his limp show through his gait as he walks over to Erwin’s desk. He places a hand on the surface, lets the weight off his bad leg and looks at Erwin’s back. “It’s all shit.”

“Yes.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I trust Mike will take care of the situation.” Erwin’s shoulders relax just a bit, enough to begin the untangling of nerves within Levi’s own muscles. “It will depend on how Annie’s accomplices move going forward as they defend the area.” He shifts his foot and turns slightly to face Levi. “I will have you out traveling south with Hange to try to extract information from Pastor Nick.”

Levi crosses his arms, meets Erwin’s gaze. “And where will you be?”

“Here.” Erwin turns fully now, places a knuckle on his desktop and offers a silent apology. “I will need to rally more troops while smoothing out diplomatic matters.”

“I should be here.” Levi says. “They don’t trust you.”

Erwin nods, a small smile hinting his lips. “No, they do not.” Erwin motions his hand for Levi to come closer. The man does so, stands in front of him and looks up into his eyes. “However, I cannot have you injured any further.”

Levi rolls his eyes. “We can’t afford to have you dead.”

Erwin smiles, “I am replaceable.”

Levi’s eyes narrow. “Don’t get on about that now. Not at a time like this.”

Placing a hand on Levi’s cheek, Erwin shakes his head. “Everything is in motion. Hange, Mike, and yourself know what to do. I will do what I can to protect the Corps.” He huffs a laugh, “Who knows, maybe I will become a martyr.”

They both don’t believe it for a second. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Trust me, Levi.” He leans down, their nose touching as he finishes, “One more time.”

Levi grabs the collar of Erwin’s shirt, pulls him down to him to capture his lips roughly. Erwin returns, placing his hands on Levi’s hips as he guides him up against the desk. Their mouths play against each other, as they have so many times before, so frequently under the same kind of circumstances. Who knows when they’ll die, who knows when they’ll see their friends next, who knows if they’ll all be dead by the titans by morning. 

Who knows anything anymore?

Erwin knows. Erwin always knows what to do.

He tells it to Levi. Illustrates it with his tongue against his; you’ll be ok. Moans it with frustrated breaths; you’re necessary. Forces it on him with heavy hands on his hip bones; I need you. Actions speak the words they cannot. Puts Levi’s mind at ease into a fuzzy haze of lust. A distraction from the pain in his leg, in his mind, in his heart.

“Now?” Levi breathes when he has a second to breathe.

“When will we get another chance?” Erwin lifts Levi onto the desk, has moved a hand up to Levi’s cravat to unfold it from his neck.

“Stop it.” Levi grabs Erwin’s hand. “Stop talking like…” He moans out as Erwin runs his tongue up Levi’s exposed neck. His legs kick up as he shudders, and Erwin takes the chance to press Levi’s back down against the desk. He’s eager and rushed, and Levi can feel Erwin’s constrained and growing erection against his ass as he presses it against him. “ _Shit_.”

“You leave within the hour.”

“Ok ok…” Levi groans out again as Erwin’s hands have moved to the buckle on Levi’s pants. Levi holds Erwin’s face between his hands, kisses him desperately, gasps out when Erwin takes his cock in his hand. Their mouthes gape against each other, their panting building a heat between them that feels like it could burn Levi alive. “F-forget that.” He squirms under Erwin, his heels hooking to the inside of Erwin’s knees. “Just… Get the oil…”

Erwin nods slowly, kissing him a few more times before leaving the comfort of his captain’s embrace. He rummages in his desk drawer as Levi leans up and unfastens Erwin from his own clothing restraints. Erwin’s cock is so big that it practically springs out of the constrains of his pants, and Levi is so thirsty to feel it deep in him, to have it push the thoughts of everything out of him with every thrust. He takes it in his hand, pulls the foreskin down and leans down to run his tongue along the tip.

Erwin shudders, slams the canister of oil onto the table as he tries to concentrate on getting some on his fingers. “Levi.” He grumbles, his teeth don’t hit his lips as he pronounces the ‘v’, his name coming out through nothing but his throat. He grabs the back of Levi’s shirt and pulls him back up to kiss him roughly, buries his teeth into the man’s lower lip before growling. Levi lets out a sharp gasp as he grasps onto Erwin’s jacket. He lets the man’s lip ago and guides Levi onto his back again.

“Fuck me.” Levi whines between kisses. He feels Erwin’s weight on him, feels Erwin thrusting against his own hand as he kisses down Levi’s jaw, to his neck, pulling his shirt down to kiss his collar and the crest of his chest. “ _Shit!”_ Levi arches into Erwin, pulls blonde hair between his fingers, wants so badly to feel full and aching with the one man that had claimed his entire existence.

It feels like forever before Erwin goes to pull Levi’s pants down around his ass. He pulls Levi closer to him, moves Levi’s legs to drape around his shoulders, both of them still fully dressed. When Erwin presses two fingers roughly into Levi’s ass, the man hisses a pained noise, wrenches his eyes shut against it. He softens when Erwin leans down to kiss tenderly along his cheekbones, folding Levi’s body in on himself. Erwin always loves how flexible his captain is, how malleable he is under the pressure of battle, under the pleasures of sex. “My captain.”

“Commander,” Levi moans out as a third digit joins.

“Trust me.”

Levi throws his head back, bites the side of his thumb, lets his body move against the thrusting of Erwin’s fingers. “Erwin!” He finds Erwin’s mouth again and sloppily kisses against it, doesn’t care when he feels drool trailing down the corner of his mouth. “Fuck me!”

Erwin steps back, slicks his fingers out of Levi the pulls a whimper along with it. He grabs Levi’s ass, with one hand he spreads the cheeks slightly, guides his cock to his hole. He leans back down, the folding of Levi’s body causing him to sigh out a moan, exaggerated as Erwin’s cock teases against his opening. “I’m sorry we didn’t…”

“Just do it. I need you… In me.” Levi’s head hits the desk again, but his back arches, and his chest meets his knees as Erwin enters into him. Their fevered pace didn’t allow for proper foreplay, but holy _hell_  if he doesn’t feel right. Doesn’t feel _perfect_. “Dammit. Oh. _Erwin_.”

Grabbing onto Levi’s hips, Erwin brings Levi closer to him, drags his dick into Levi slowly at first. He listens to the pulse in his ears, matches his pace with it. His thighs hit the side of the desk as he manages to fuck Levi to the hilt, is rewarded with a moan that could shatter the glass of the office window. Levi tries to find something to hold onto, his fingers graze against the candelabra, causes it to tilt and fall to its side before it teeters off the edge of the desk after the jarring force of Erwin’s thrusts. Erwin mutters Levi’s name–tastes its beauty, craves everything that comes with it. Thanks the goddesses for allowing him this one salvation. Praying, as if he believed, that they could die together some day.

It would be too cruel to live without the other.

“Levi!” Erwin falls to his elbows, his thrusts falling into a familiar pattern, the one that signaled his orgasm.

Levi gasps against Erwin’s weight, against his own legs, runs his hands up the back of Erwin’s neck and into his hair. “Come.” He rasps into Erwin’s ear. It takes a couple of more thrusts before he feels the warm release of Erwin’s cum in his ass, the weak whimpers escaping from Erwin’s breath against his ear, the clutches of his hands on Levi’s shoulders. Levi feels like everything in these moments, the vulnerability of the commander being his and his alone. They gasp for breath together, between each other’s mouths, their lips finding each other again as Erwin fucks Levi a few thrusts more, slick and hot with the wetness of Erwin’s orgasm. It makes Levi shudder, makes him long for release too.

Erwin knows, because Erwin always knows. He pulls out, adjusts Levi’s legs so they hang over the edge of the desk as he moves on lean over Levi. Grabbing Levi’s hips, he moves him more toward the edge, runs his tongue up the seam of Levi’s balls and up the underside of his cock, to the slit of the head, before taking the shaft into his mouth. Levi kicks his heels into the drawer of the desk, writhes when he feels three fingers curl into his ass and press against his prostate. “ _Shit!”_ Levi cries out. He closes his eyes against his pleasure, puts his hands on top of Erwin’s, clutching his fingernails into the soft skin on top of Erwin’s hands.

“Look at me, Levi.” Erwin says before he bobs his head back down onto Levi’s cock, swallowing him down his throat as he massages the slick insides of his captain.

Levi tries to find the strength to keep himself upright by his elbows. Looks down his body at Erwin, sees haunting blue eyes looking up at him behind light eyelashes. His cock is completely gone in Erwin’s mouth–feels his tongue pressing against the underside of it, feels his throat fucking the tip of it, and it’s so hard to keep control. To not unravel completely under his commander. “E-erwin.” Erwin closes his eyes, bobs his head in time with the pumping of his fingers, and it takes so little to have Levi begging for release. “I can’t…”

Erwin presses his finger against Levi’s spot, rolls a deep growl against Levi’s cock, and that’s enough to send him spilling. He spurts into Erwin’s mouth, shivers and cries into the sleeves of his forearms as he comes. His knees rattle against Erwin’s sides as he feels Erwin swallowing down around him. Curses shake out of his mouth in repetition, and he’s forgotten how to speak, let alone the events that had happened over the past few days. The past year. His entire life.

Erwin is Levi’s savior, his friend, his ally. His commander.

Levi is Erwin’s weapon, his lover, his right hand. His captain.

They kiss, and it’s slow and drawn out, their chests pressed against each other that they can feel the pounding of their chests. Alive. Breathing. Beautiful and precious in this moment. Their love has meaning, as a place in this world, until it has to end.

“It’s everybody else…” Levi says softly into Erwin’s hair.

Erwin runs his nose along the line of Levi’s jaw, sighs out, and it tickles Levi when he does. “Trust in me.”

Levi nods, presses his cheek to the top of Erwin’s head, and wishes with every fiber of his being–his past, present, and future–that this moment could freeze. That he could be with Erwin forever. That he could protect him, could keep him from harm and pain… But with this knee he…

“Understood.”


	33. postwar dreaming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: postwar dreaming
> 
> "Do you think Levi ever fantasized about living with Erwin after the end of the war?"

levi’s never quite been an optimist, maybe not really a pessimist either. no, he likens himself more to a realist. so it bugs him more than he cares to admit that he thinks about it so much. the “what ifs”. the “it could be’s”.

he puts his hand on erwin’s arm while they’re walking through town. he opens his mouth to say how nice the bakery looks, how he’d like to have a shop like that some day. wake up before the sun rises, have the smell of yeast deep in his pores, and flour on his cheeks. erwin would knead the dough, they’d decorate the tarts together, then they’d share a cup of tea as the afternoon closed out. 

erwin looks down at him with an eyebrow raised. levi shakes his head and says nothing.

there’s houses. levi’s never owned a house. he squatted for years in the underground. the place him and furlan found was run down until they worked together to piece it back together. nobody came after rent–probably too afraid to once they realized the residents. but how nice… “how nice would it be?” he says as he pauses in front of a house in stohess. a nice two floor house out in the farmlands inside wall maria. no– _outside_ of wall maria. they’d have horses, sheep, dogs, ducks. erwin could till the fields while levi tended their garden. he’d bake pies that sat on window sills, and they’d sit on the couch and read until the sun faded away and onward under candle light.

“what would be nice?”

levi looks up at erwin wide eyed, averts them and runs his palm against his cheek to rub the heat away from them. “if we… nothing.”

erwin smiles.

they sit together on a tree branch as they watch some new recruits zip through the trees taking out titan dummies. erwin lets his legs swing lazily below him until he presses his shoulder against levi.

“what?” levi mutters.

“i would like to take you out somewhere.”

levi’s jaw tightens. “why?”

“it has been a trying couple of months, and you haven’t had a chance to unwind.”

“i’m fine.”

“i know you are. so what do you say?”

“whatever.”

they go into town the next day. erwin buys him a pastry from that same bakery, and levi finds himself longing to be the one behind the counter, his hands covered in baking ingredients instead of blood. erwin shoves a whole danish into his mouth as they’re leaving, and levi tries to hide a smile as flakes fall down and litter his chest. unabashedly, he reaches up and cleans off the man’s shirt with the back of his hand and clicks his tongue. “fucking slob.”

“we have places to be.” erwin talks around his food.

“it’s our day off, erwin.” but erwin is already several strides away. levi trots to keep up. they walk a few blocks away before stopping in front of a door to an unassuming rowhouse. the door is newly painted, deep red like boysenberries and the knob a polished brass. erwin is searching through his pants, his jacket– his civilian clothes seeming to have thrown off his sense of self. he grunts as he pats every pocket again before locating the key and pulling it out. “what’s…” levi starts.

erwin puts the key into the lock and turns it. “as high command, we’re allowed to live off base if we would like.” he turns the door knob and lets the the door swing open. “i have never had a need for an off site location…” he steps aside, offering levi to go in before him. “until now.”

levi looks at him, tries to find the words to say. it’s so hard. he’s a realist. “you’ll never come here.”

“if i have somebody to come home to i will.”

levi wants to tell him that he’ll never make it back to this house either. that they’ll keep sleeping in chairs in their offices until the end of time, until the end of the war. but there’s a feeling in his chest that grips him, chokes him, and he uncomfortably straightens out the sleeves of his shirt. “you better have tea and a kettle in there, old man.”

“of course.” erwin says as he places a kiss on top of levi’s head and guides them into the house, closing the boysenberry door behind him.


	34. postwar dreaming (reprise)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> somebody reblogged "postwar dreaming" and tagged it with "but then he goes back home after erwin is dead and nobody is there" and i almost threw up with sadness how dare you

he had been right. 

he and erwin had enjoyed their new house for a brief amount of time. the first week levi moved some of his plain clothes and uniforms into an empty drawer in the bedroom. he purchased a bag of miscellaneous home stuffs–utensils, cookware, items to make cleaning supplies, and the most expensive piece–a blown glass vase that he placed on the dining table.

they ate at the table for the first week. it was surreal. coming to the house after training and mountains of paperwork only to act a life that they never belonged to. they would eat under candlelight, speaking briefly about their day’s work as if it didn’t involve lives that had passed, lives that were going to pass. that in the end, they were playing with each soldier’s life as easily as a pawn on a chessboard.

levi found he enjoyed sleeping in beds, under covers, with his limbs tied up like knots around erwin. it wasn’t that he hadn’t had those nights before in erwin’s quarters, in his quarters, but there was always the risk of a hesitant knock at the door from another officer. and it wasn’t that they still didn’t wake up early. erwin would sometimes sit up against the headboard, papers in his hands and on his lap as levi drifted in and out of sleep, his body curled against his leg like a cat and his forehead pressed against the side of erwin’s thigh. erwin would occasionally drag a finger along levi’s shoulder blade, arm, cheek, and they’d both smile groggily in the presence of the other.

levi had found words burrowed within the wooden walls of the house–like termites they bred and crawled out through his mouth like pests. “you look handsome.” “i need you.” and one time, “i love you.”

levi stopped suggesting they go home so frequently after that–visits spacing out from weeks to months. he’d visit on his own to clean the dust off of unused cast iron pans, wash and hang sheets that hadn’t been used since the last cleaning. he tossed out rotten and wilted flowers from his vase and replaced them with new ones he picked on the way in.

erwin joined him one time during cleaning. cornered him against a wall and pulled the handkerchief down from his nose and placed a gentle kiss on dry lips. “i love you.” he said, and levi wanted to dodge out of the way of erwin’s mass… but it pulled him in like gravity, his heart floating up through his throat as he pressed his lips against erwin’s. they ended up tied together in their bed, levi’s nose nestled in the back of erwin’s neck, his bottom lip moving and playing with the stubble of erwin’s undercut.

“i love you too.”

when erwin lost his arm, it was harder to break down his walls. he stayed up later at night, slept less, talked little. he spoke to levi differently, more formally, like they didn’t have six years of history between them. levi came to him one night, interrupted erwin’s preparations for their expedition to reclaim shinganshina. “come home with me.” he said.

“i cannot, levi.”

“erwin.”

“levi. no.”

levi’s jaw set, and he turned to leave, grasped the handle to erwin’s office door as he kicked back the tears that threatened to touch his eyes. why did he care so much? why was he going to cry over _this_  and not things that mattered–like the countless soldiers that had lost their lives over the years. no, being rejected was what threatened to break him. he tried one last time to keep himself together, “please.”

“levi.”

levi swallowed and left the office. he went back to his quarters, looked around at his bed, his chair, his clothes. he grunted as he took the back of the chair in his grasp and threw it across the room. he pulled the hair of his bangs at the roots, huffed out angrily through his teeth before turning and leaving his room. he walked briskly away from base, ignoring any looks from fellow soldiers as he did.

he made dinner. put out two plates but ate alone under candlelight. he didn’t sleep at all in their bed that night. he needed erwin there, wanted erwin there. they had such little time together left… erwin was going to go into war with one arm–no longer a warrior but a figurehead. levi curled up on the bed, buried his head into his forearms and clenched every muscle to keep himself from falling apart.

he left the next morning after putting out a fresh cut of flowers.

when he returned, the vase was littered with fallen petals, the water in its basin having evaporated and leaving a dusty film around the bottom of the vase. it had been 8 months since he had opened that boysenberry door. and as soon as he saw how unchanged it had all been, levi wanted to make it to be 8 more.

he pulled the chair out from the dining table and sat down with his fingers folded in front of him. he stared off for a long time until his tears pattered onto the dusty table, and his voice shook through the empty house declaring the one thing he was always so painfully afraid to admit to erwin inside these walls: “i love you.”


	35. pianst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for erurink. prompt: pianst

“does he look familiar to you?” levi says, leaning on the armrest of his seat into petra.

“shhhh.” she responds, shoving her elbow into his arm.

“no, i’m… shit.” levi sits back into his seat. he draws his hand down his face, holding his chin into his hand, his leg bouncing in nervous agitation. no. no, he fucking _knew_  this guy, and it was driving him crazy that he couldn’t pinpoint it.

it’s the way the man’s fingers move across the keys. it’s like he’s tracing them over the ridges of a lover–fluid and gentle, quick and mesmerizing. levi licks his lips, crosses one arm over his chest and holds the side of his neck with the other. he feels his pulse railing under his thumb, and it’s out of time with the piece the man is playing. it just serves to rile him up more.

he watches as the man’s upper body sways with the movements of his hands, a strand of gelled blonde hair falling loose as the meter of the arrangement becomes more intense. he closes his eyes briefly, becomes one with the music as his fingers dance across ebony and ivory. his lips part as he opens his eyes again, his head jarring forward as the song falls into a quiet pause.

levi’s breath hitches.

“jesus, what’s wrong with you?” petra hisses a hushed warning at him. a neighbor shushs them, and she returns a glare at them before it rests back on levi.

“i need to leave.” levi says, abruptly standing up and shuffling his way out of the seats, choosing to leave the direction away from petra.

“ _levi_.” petra goes to grab for him but misses. she watches him rush up the aisle, clutches her purse in her hands before huffing out her nose and following. she finds levi pacing in the foyer, his hands waving and pantomiming a conversation he’s having in his head. “levi, what the hell?”

“i know him, pet.” he looks at her desperately, his fingers clawed and clutching, as if they’re waiting to snatch the answer out of the air at any moment.

“well, do you?”

“i don’t… know…”

“like deja vu?”

“i don’t fuckin’ know.” he swipes his hand through his hair and looks back at the double doors that go back into the into the concert hall. “i don’t…”

“we can leave.” petra says, but she’s clearly irritated. they’d planned this night for months, had wanted to go to the symphony together for years. finally the stars aligned and levi was being… levi.

“no… just… gimme a minute.”

petra looks him up and down. her mouth quirks into a frown before she nods. “ok. don’t be too long.”

“yeah…”

levi finds himself against the wall. the foyer is carpeted in deep red, the grecian columns painted gold and reaching to the ceiling flourished with carved victorian ornamentation. he feels out of place, wearing his best clothing–a dark plain t-shirt and a pair of black slacks. he stands out like a black ink splotch on a white shirt, and his eyes nervously land on the exit.

“sir?”

levi’s head snaps to the voice. it sounds familiar enough to let his stomach feel hot, like it’s been gashed open and left to spill onto the floor–his brand of red to mix with the red of the plush. “wh…” levi presses his shoulder into the wall, curls himself into it when he sees it’s _him_.

tall, broad, handsome. black suit with a simple black tie. white shirt professionally cleaned and pressed. his blonde hair halos his head, his blue eyes contrasting against the golden ceiling. “i apologize if i startled you.”

“n-no… you’re fine.” levi tries to relax, but he can’t. his fingers catch into the grooves of the carvings on the wall. “what are you doin’ out here? weren’t you just playing?”

“my piece is over.” he smiles, and it makes levi shrink more. “and i saw you leave in a hurry.” he steps forward. “did you dislike my work?”

“what? no. what? why would you…”

“have we met before?”

“i uh… no?” levi moves against the wall, toward the exit.

“you look familiar.”

“i hear that a lot.”

“do you?”

levi stops, holds the man’s gaze until it settles around him like a blanket. “no.”

the man keeps looking at him, until finally his face breaks its stoicism and he rumbles out a laugh. “right right…”

“what do you want…? why are you…?” levi’s eyes fall onto the man’s hands. they’re big, but they look soft. delicate and well manicured. his played that piano like it had been an extension of himself, like he was born to play it. he imagined them on him, and the idea itself felt familiar. comforting. lovely.

“i’m not sure.”

levi swallows and straightens his back against the wall. he admitted to himself that he had never felt this affected by somebody in his life. that there was some kind of mystery shrouding this man and his perfect fingers. that there was a reason why he could feel the phantom touch of hands through his hair. “go out with me.” he blurts.

“all right.”

levi blinks. “really?”

“yes. right now.”

levi looks back at the double doors, then at the exit, then back at the man’s hands. “ok. yeah.” levi kicks off the wall and starts toward the exit.

“erwin.” he says, unabashedly placing his hand on the small of levi’s back. levi doesn’t twitch, doesn’t move away from the touch. instead, he sways into it, his shoulder touch into the man’s ribcage.

levi pulls out his phone to text petra. tells her he had to leave. he’d explain to her later, and he hoped he could explain to himself at the same time. he had little hope that he would be able to.

“levi.” he answers.

“levi.” erwin echoes. and it doesn’t feel like his name anymore–that it always belonged to this blonde, gorgeous stranger. “what a lovely name.”


	36. first time sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: first time sex
> 
> "Eruris doing it for the first time ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is nc-17 as fuck. obviously. you nincompoop.

“erwin,” levi speaks into erwin’s mouth, his top lip catching against erwin’s bottom, and that touch alone sends his cock leaking against the inside of his underwear.

“levi,” erwin speaks into levi’s mouth, his lips pinching down onto levi’s top lip, his body drawing back with a sigh, his own cock aching inside pants that are bound by harnesses, zippers, and two years of agonizing sexual tension.

they ended up here after soft, chaste kisses on knuckles. nothing different from what levi had done in the past. their silent ritual of appreciation–touches that made their hearts beat out of time, made their pupils dilate ever so slightly, made their throats flick dryly. but erwin had asked levi to kiss him instead, and levi didn’t even hesitate. he moved like he had dreamed it for days, maybe even years, as if his lips have already traced out the exact shape of erwin’s, and they fell together like puzzle pieces.

erwin places a big hand on the small of levi’s back and presses the man against himself. levi’s on him in his office chair, his legs stretched over his lap, taut like a bow string and just as ready to fire arrows into him. levi’s mouth gaps against his, his eyes half-lidded and eager, his fingers coming up to cradle the back of erwin’s head as he presses his lips to his commander’s again. he moans softly into the flesh, grinds his hips against erwin’s lap, and erwin groans back. 

erwin squeezes levi against himself, hears the soft squeak of discomfort, but he can’t get enough of levi. wants to be one with him, just like he feels out in the battle field. “levi.”

“fuck me.” levi says between kisses. there’s silver eyes on his bolo tie and the captain pulls at his green ornament until it’s hanging under his sternum. “erwin.” it’s quiet, but it’s pleading in levi’s own way, and it makes erwin feel drunk.

“i…” erwin pleads back. levi is unbuttoning his shirt, leaving wet marks down revealed skin, leaving pools of hot bliss in his path. “ah, levi… i…”

levi doesn’t know what to do with himself. he pauses at erwin’s right nipple, takes the nub in his mouth, pinches it between his teeth to be rewarded with a sharp hiss and an arched back below him. he removes his own jacket as he keeps working his commander, then moves to undo his own shirt. he wants to feel erwin’s skin against his–a need that’s so strong he chooses to be selfish for once, to claim erwin’s beauty for himself in this moment. the shirt slides off his shoulders, and he pushes erwin’s shirt aside, presses his chest against erwin’s, and the heat alone makes them both moan in unison, their mouths finding each other again hungrily, desperately.

“fill me up.” levi growls, his hips rutting harder into erwin, his hand moving to either side of erwin’s face, grounding him into place as he fucks erwin through his clothes. 

erwin’s eyes draw closed, thick eyebrows pinched tight toward the bridge of his nose. he pants lightly into levi’s mouth, kisses him more, relishing in the smacking sound of their lips, commits it to memory, archives it under one of the few moments of happiness to bring up in times of dire need. “i have never…”

levi bites erwin’s neck, wraps his lips around his teeth and sucks the spot gingerly before releasing with a _pop_. “never fucked a man before?” he leans back to look at erwin, one hand on the side of erwin’s hot cheek, the other tweaking a nipple gingerly between his forefingers.

“no…” erwin’s head falls back against the desk chair. his bottom lip pinches between his teeth as he looks hungrily down at levi.

“would you like to?”

there’s a brief pause, and levi swears he can hear erwin’s heartbeat flux into something dangerous, hot and rushing like a river meeting a waterfall. a nod comes, slowly at first, then feverishly. “yes.” 

the river rushes through levi, and he becomes focused on the task. “do you, uh…” erwin whimpers as levi’s attention is diverted from him, feels levi’s weight and warmth leave off of his lap. levi stands, turns himself so his back is facing erwin, and looks frantically at the drawers of the commander’s desk. he’s cleaned this damn office so many times–there must be some kind of lubricant _somewhere_.

erwin wraps his arms around levi, presses his nose into the soft valley of levi’s spine. drags a tongue up old scars, tastes the salt from lust induced sweat. he tastes so good, like the rarity of open air. he kisses the backside of his ribs, lets one hand trail up to haphazardly discover one of levi’s nipples, and demonstrates to levi how fast of a learner he can be.

levi’s hands land on the desk, air hissing through his teeth as his back arches toward erwin. “knock it off.” but it holds no venom, he’s putty in erwin’s hold and he sinks down toward the floor, lets himself be dragged back into erwin’s lap.

“you taste so good.” erwin mutters against his ear, licks the shell of it while breathing shakily. levi moans as he unravels more, falling limp and deadweight in erwin’s arms. “you’re so beautiful, levi.”

“k-knock it off.” levi whines again. his head falls back between erwin’s neck and shoulder, eyes falling shut as erwin’s hands rove down his body, find their way to his buckles and undo them one at a time as easily as he does to himself. lips mark along his neck, and levi’s chest empties completely in a sigh. how many times had he imagined this? how many times had he dreamed of these calloused hands, these soft lips, this hard body against him? his back arches as his pants slide down his ass, his erection springing from its confines and into erwin’s hand. “shit…”

“is this ok?” erwin asks, and the commander leaves him as he hesitantly wraps his hand around levi’s cock. he places a kiss on his neck, but doesn’t do anything more until he receives an answer.

“yes… yes.” levi moves his hips against erwin, his cock fucking the loose loop of erwin’s grip, his body shuddering in a need he has never quite felt before.

“good.” his grip tightens, his hand moving in unsure movements at first, but begin to gain more confidence as he learns levi’s pattern. the noises leaving his captain clue him into proper form, and he fingers the slit of levi’s cock as precum pools at it, and uses it to lubricate his gestures.

with his body bowing forward, levi’s hands grasp desperately at the edge of desk. his head falls down between his arms, his hips moving in time with erwin’s, because of course it didn’t take them long at all to resonate. he moans out loud, long, and hard as he fucks erwin’s hand with no regret. he’s so fucking warm, so fucking confident, and erwin was fucking _his_ and he couldn’t even believe it. “erwin, seriously.” it comes out high pitched, desperate, bleeding with disbelief and desire all in one. “ _fuck me_.”

but he doesn’t let up. he kisses up levi’s back, holds his hip still with one hand as the other continues to work his captain into a blissful frenzy. he’s proud, he’ll admit, to have levi so broken with desire within his grasp so quickly. it’s been almost a decade since he’s touched anybody like this…

frustrated, levi pushes his back against erwin and loosens himself from erwin long enough to stumble to the side and open one of the drawers to erwin’s desk. third drawer down on the left had lamp oil in it. that would do–this time. he pulls it out and puts it on the desk, and erwin already has his arms around him again, hand on his cock again like a predator eating his prey, and levi slams a fist on the desktop. “stop it!”

erwin smiles into levi’s back, laughs deeply and darkly into the warm skin as he drags his hand lazily up levi’s cock. “patience.”

“you’re the one that needs it. fuckin’ get your hands offa me for two damn seconds.”

“i’ve dreamed so many times of doing this to you, levi.”

levi stops, fingers half deep into the oil basin, the air in his chest caught and struggling to escape through his nose. erwin had wanted him as badly as he wanted him. he bites his lip, but a moan still rips from his throat as he pulls his fingers from the oil, erwin’s hand having found exactly the right way to pleasure him despite himself. he moves the lubed digits to his ass, probes one finger in, but he’s shaking too much against erwin’s hand to concentrate. he just want erwin in him, and he’s not sure how much he cares if it hurts. he’s had worse–he’ll always have worse.

“take your fuckin’ cock out and fuck me.” levi lowers his chest onto the desk, his ass sticking out toward erwin, his cock hanging between his legs and still being pumped lazily by his commander. his toes barely touches the rug below his feet.

“levi.”

“erwin, i swear if you don’t…”

erwin releases levi, and stands from his chair, pushing it behind him to make more space. he unbuckles his own garments, slower than he did with levi, his eyes tracing every line of levi’s backside as he does so. the deep shadows along his hips, the dimples above his ass, the toned muscles of his cheeks. erwin pulls his zipper down, pulls his cock out and runs a hand along it, moaning hungrily against his own touch, the relief so great to have it free from clothing that it makes him dizzy. he leans over and dips a finger into the oil, rubs it between his fingers and applies it to his dick with sloppy frenzy.

“erwin.” levi pleads, his ass wiggling slightly, and it makes erwin laugh softly.

“i don’t…”

“just… stick it in.” and erwin swears he can hear the blush on levi’s voice.

“is it going to hurt?”

“yeah.” levi lifts himself with his elbows, looks back at erwin with a gentle look on his face. “but it’s all right.”

“tell me what to do.”

levi nods as he lays his head back down, a breath shuddering across his whole body. erwin positions himself behind levi, one hand on the small of his back, the other pulling levi open so he knows where to guide himself. he pushes the tip of his cock against levi’s opening, his lips falling open at the sensation of the tip heated against flesh that is not his own.

“do it.” levi whimpers.

erwin presses against it, watches as the tip begins to sink into levi, feels it so tight around himself that his heart moans out of his mouth, his legs shaking against the feeling as levi’s entire body tightens around him.

“shit. shit shit shiiiit.” levi curls in on himself, his fingers burying into his palms. “ahhhh.”

“are you…”

“keep going. _fuck_.”

erwin holds levi’s hip tightly, guides himself deeper into levi until the tip of his cock is gone.

“stop stop…” levi pants. “let me…” moving his hips, he fucks erwin’s cock until the pain of the stretch starts to dissipate, until the pain starts to turn to pleasure, and the moans change from discomfort to enjoyment. “deeper.”

erwin slides himself more into levi, the tightness of his captain causing him to draw his eyes shut, sends sounds from his throat he’s never quite heard. words from this throat he’s never quite said. “you feel so good, levi.”

“deeper, ah.” levi starts to meet him, pushing his ass against erwin to feel the man’s large cock fill him deeper than anything ever has. “yes.” they move together carefully, slowly, the gentle probing with erwin’s cock opening levi with every shallow and slow thrust. “faster.” he instructs, pushing his body further up the desk. he wants erwin to take him now that’s he open. he’s his, and he always will be. “fuck me, erwin.”

erwin takes hold of levi’s hips and slowly starts to build up his rhythm as he gets used to being consumed by levi. it doesn’t take long for him to fall into pattern that makes his whole body shudder, that makes them both pant out moans that sound like battle cries. he feels one with levi, their sweat and sounds and groaning all singing like ballads of old expeditions. he presses himself in to the hilt, pulls out to the tip and slams back into his captain. gets them both to succumb to primal calls, levi writhing deliciously on top of expedition maps, ink smudging against his paper skin, his drool pooling around formations as he gasps out erwin’s name.

erwin leans over him, takes one of levi’s hands in his own, interlaces their fingers and buries his nose into the nape of his neck. “levi.”

“erwin. oh _fuck_.” erwin thrusts deep into him, and the new angle sends stars to the back of levi’s eyelids. “right there. ah!” his grip around erwin’s hand tightens. he brings their fists to his mouth, and he sinks his teeth into the backside of erwin’s hand.

“ _fuck_.” erwin responds, his hips bucking deep into levi, and he doesn’t know how much longer he can last. levi is just too gorgeous, too perfect, and erwin is lost in every beautiful sound the man makes as he receives him.

“harder.” levi’s other hand has moved to his cock, and pumps out of time of their thrusting. his voice is crescendoing into orgasm. his head sweeps back against the map on the desk, his hair fanning out above his head, covering his face, matted with sweat, but still so soft and beautiful.

erwin slams into him, his thrusts becoming deeper and shallower as his feels his orgasm building in his belly. and levi can feel it, knows this better than he does. “i want to see you.” levi mutters against the desk.

“what?” erwin’s rhythm interrupts briefly, but he’s still lost in the haze of his oncoming orgasm.

“come on me.” levi says, pushing his hand against erwin’s thigh to signal him off. erwin steps aside, groaning so loud it borders anger. but levi doesn’t disappoint. he slides off the desk, pushes his body against erwin as he takes his cock into his hand and pumps. he looks up at erwin, waits patiently for erwin to look down at him, before he finishes erwin off.

erwin braces himself heavily on levi’s shoulders, leans down to kiss desperately against levi’s lips, breathes staggered moans across his face as his cock pumps deep into levi’s hand, sticky tendrils of come splashing onto levi’s bare chest and belly. he pushes levi into the desk, the desk moving as he does, moans weakly into his captain and he’s never… he’s never been so vulnerable.

“you’re beautiful, too.” levi says, and it’s almost shy in its delivery. he kisses erwin softly, for a long time, doesn’t even mind that erwin doesn’t have enough thoughts left in his brain to kiss him back. he licks his lips, down to his jaw, along his neck, and kisses across the soft hair of erwin’s heaving chest. he’s beautiful and spent and his. levi pushes him toward the chair, waits for erwin to gain enough senses back to ease down into it, deflated and spent.

“levi.” is all erwin can say, pulls levi into his arms and nuzzles his nose into his neck.

levi is still horny, still wants to feel his own orgasm, but erwin is so comfortable, so warm, and he figures erwin’s lap is reward enough. “go to sleep.”

erwin rumbles in agreement, pets levi’s undercut until he drifts into sleep, levi’s lips worshiping his old wounds until he begins to snore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think my sex scenes are getting better, but my sex talk really is super embarrassing. i'm so sorry, guys. i'll do better characterization in the future.


	37. pizza hut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for valisi... because she was drunk and talking about erwin making sex noises when he eats pizza hut. i love you babe.

erwin’s favorite cheat day place to eat is pizza hut.

the cheese is just the right amount of processed, the ham baked just crispy enough that it crunches under his teeth, and the olives taste just enough like tin cans that it makes his greasy lips crease into a smile. they have to order two pizzas, one loaded with all kinds of garbage that levi swears up and down shouldn’t be on a pizza, extra sauce and stuffed crust… and a small cheese pizza with no sauce. 

levi eats his pizza. he takes a bite, places it down on his plate, and wipes his mouth with a napkin before taking another bite. erwin is already through two slices and readying for a third when he makes the noise.

“nnnggghhh.” erwin says, as he bites into the slice.

levi’s face goes red. he looks around the restaurant. it’s dinner rush, and nearly all the tables are occupied by families no smaller than three. he dashes a hand to his face and sinks into the booth. “erwiiiin. what the _fuck?”_

erwin groans again into his pizza as he takes half of it into his mouth, bites off the piece, and starts to chew.

“erwin! knock it off!”

“what?” he says, mouth full and chewing as he brings a straw of his pepsi up to his lips.

“those noises…” levi looks around again, blushing furiously.

erwin swallows, puts his glass down, but continues to hold his piece of pizza. “it tastes good, babe.”

“yeah, well you sound like your dick is halfway down a throat instead!” he shouts, slamming his fist on the table. the two tables bordering their booths draw silent.

“might as well be.” erwin smiles.

“you’re fucking disgusting.” he shoves his plate away, goes to shift out of the booth. 

erwin drops his hand on top of levi’s and holds him there, looks into his eyes and places down his piece of pizza. “don’t be jealous.”

levi glares, curls his fingers in to his palm, and rolls his eyes. “gross.”

erwin keeps focus on levi’s eyes as he goes to grab his piece of pizza again, his grip tightening around levi’s hand as he does. he rolls his eyes back slightly and takes a bite of the pizza, groaning out long and hard as he does. because truthfully, cheat day was almost as good as an orgasm.

“GOD DAMMIT, ERWIN!”

“sir,” the waitress comes up to them, a serving tray clutched to her chest.

“WHAT?!”

“levi…”

“we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

“ERWIN.”

erwin looks at levi, then back at the waitress. “… can we at least get a box to go?”


	38. sex scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for winglysimmer. prompt: sex scene
> 
> "Actor AU: Levi is onset when Erwin is performing the steamy scene with his co-star in the James Bond movie"

this was levi’s first big role. it’d been years of headshots and failed agents until he finally got a low billed part in the most recent bond movie. he tried not to get excited–it wasn’t really his style to have any kind of enthusiasm in this industry. anything could be pulled out from under you at any moment, and even when you made it big, you could still fall hard.

but erwin smith. he was actually going to be working alongside _erwin fucking smith_. names didn’t light up in gold quite as much as his name. shine just as bright as the yellow of his perfectly styled hair. send women and men quivering and broken as much as he does. levi had his fair share of _entertainment weekly_  magazines, full cover photos of half clothed and oiled smith shoved away in his nightstand drawer. he’d come enough times, whimpering into his wrist, thinking of big tanned hands locked into the grooves of his hips. a fantasy so much like a dream sometimes, that he’d sworn they could have been real.

he hesitated to call it an obsession. that would imply he had a problem. jerking off to celebrities wasn’t something you particularly talked about, but they were sex symbols and was of course a thing that happened. but he found himself following paparazzi twitters, following locations to see if he could come across smith in the open. see if he was as godlike as he was in the papers.

and now that he was sitting on set, clad in villainous attire of slicked back hair and a well tailored suit, he couldn’t keep his eyes off of erwin smith. couldn’t control his heartbeating so heavily through his neck that he tried to sedate it with a clench of his jaw.

smith’s bare ass, flexing with each thrust, the pits the muscles hollowing and catching the shadows of the hushed lighting. the shape of his muscles curving around bone, golden skin coated in a sheen of sweat. he made soft noises as he ground against the leading female, her dark brunette hair cascading to the pillow between his fingers as he held her head up to kiss him. the room was quiet except for the pantomiming of fake romance. 

and damn if levi shouldn’t have gotten an oscar for his spectacular ability to keep a straight face and a soft cock.

the director cuts the scene and erwin pulled away from the actress. unashamed, he padded off the set, his soft dick tucked away in a cock sock. he ran a hand through his hair to replace any stray strands as an assistant ran up to him to cover him in a robe and hand him a glass of water.

levi tried not to be star struck. tried to avert his gaze from this sex god he’d been following for his entire shitty career. this man that he couldn’t even believe he was sharing the same screen with for a whole entire minute. but he kept looking, and smith must have felt those grey eyes on him. they meet, grey and blue, and locked for what felt like ages, until smith started to walk toward him, glass of water empty and handed back to the assistant. and levi tried hard to find the next closest stage assistant to hide behind, his heart still pounding in his throat and up to his ears until his head felt like it was going to pop.

“hello.” smith said. he smelled like coconuts and cologne, and for some reason it worked really well for him.  


levi didn’t look at him, ground his teeth until he finally could muster the words to respond. “hey.”

“i saw what you did earlier today. it was good stuff.”  


“must have been thinking about ‘unnamed grunt A’. i’m ‘B’.”  


smith laughed, and the smile that lingered was handsomely beautiful. “ah yes, i suppose i was mistaken.” he tilted his head and leaned forward. “but i think i’ve seen you before.”

levi shrunk away, still averting his eyes. “doubt it.”

“no… no… it was at ‘gilly’s’ wasn’t it.” smith smiled wider. “you know how to dance.”  


levi’s eyes went wide. he focused them on the golden embroidered name on smith’s robe as he struggled with the words. gilly’s was his go to place–a west hollywood gay club that pampered to the super rich. he was not rich, but he was the kind of man that had other ways of getting through the bouncers. “i have no…”

“no. some people just dance through their booze. you dance through the music.” smith leaned back, his smile still etched on his face.  


levi couldn’t hold the blush anymore. he shrunk away, his fingers curled up and played with the hem of his suit jacket. what was smith doing at a gay club? how had the paparazzi not gobbled that shit up? “like you’d be caught dead at gilly’s.” he croaked. 

“you helped my friend when they were pushed around by a drunk. i wanted to thank you at the time.”  


“o-oh.” yep, that was him.  


“i am glad that we’re able to meet like this. it was a pleasant surprise.”  


“s-sure.” levi was losing it. every second his mask was cracking.  


“what’s your name?”

“levi.”  


“you can call me erwin.” he extended his hand, and levi took it. held it in his small one and tried not to imagine how much he had jacked off to the very thought of this, with the very hand he had offered to the man.

“erwin.”  


“erwin! get back on set. we gotta shoot that all again.”  


erwin smiled. he removed his robe and stood completely naked besides his little cloth of modesty. levi’s nose flared. “it was nice meeting you.”

levi groaned, swallowed thickly, and nodded. “yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually got fanart for this!!!!! [thank you noe for this lovely piece of artwork! :D](https://noe-more-eruri.tumblr.com/post/160024750032/a-little-something-from-gouguruheddo-s-fic-about)


	39. secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: secrets
> 
> "Tea Time Request: Erwin discovers Levi's secret that he had spent years hiding from everyone (not even Hanji or Mike have discovered this well hidden secret that Erwin had stumbled upon)"

some of the deepest secrets are the ones that are out in the open. 

some scouts have booze, others stray cats, many have special spaces in the training woods with their names carved out in the bark of tree trunks. levi has none of these. there’s no diary under his mattress, or lacy underwear deep within his dresser drawers. he has no hidden space to hide contraband, or a mistresses out in the capital. levi is as closed a book as he is open. he hides nothing about his interests or his intentions. in his stoicism is the truth, and everybody seems to have him figured out.

it’s no secret that erwin and levi are close. there’s rumors about them, but even if they are true, they don’t effect morale. mortality rate is too high to care about sexuality, about relationships, about anything much else but oneself. erwin is a capable and ruthlessly intelligent leader. levi is the strongest and most compassionate of them all. their secret is public, but it just somehow makes them stronger. a bond worth fighting for, even from on the outside, even from their men and women that have taken the wings. because together they fight for humanity; together they are humanity’s greatest hope.

erwin has levi mapped out. he has a routine, sticks to it so strictly that if it strays he becomes a compressed bottle of rage. erwin is included in on this routine–from sunrise to dusk, he’s cared for in little ways. shined boots, oiled leather straps, groomed horse, restocked blades. erwin has stopped fighting him on these things, appreciates being thought of because sometimes he forgets to think of himself. when on base, they’re almost always together. erwin knows levi; erwin knows everything about levi.

that is until his finger hooks into levi’s uniform pocket, his lips lingering on his captain’s. he leans back in his chair, digs his finger deeper down into the pocket as levi tries to move away. he succeeds, shoves erwin’s hand and steps aside from his desk.

“levi?” erwin says softly. he misses the heat on his skin, the smell of dark tea and honey on his breath. levi stands with his back to erwin, brings his hands up to his breast pocket and tucks the paper back in. “what is it?”

“nothing.”

erwin wants to reach out to him, drag him back into his arms and feel the softness of his skin against his own. “all right.”

levi’s hand stays on top of his pocket before he finally takes the paper out. he holds it in his hands, folded and frayed around the edges, having been worn against denim for so long it has started to tear along the folds. his finger draws under the edge and he opens the paper as he turns to face erwin. he reads the words scrawled across the surface as erwin watches him intently, curiously. levi hands him the paper, his head down, as if he is a scolded child waiting to be reprimanded.

erwin takes it, eyebrow raised, and holds it carefully in front of the candlelight. the parchment is rough to the touch, and the pulp of the paper has rubbed away some of the ink of the words. it’s clearly levi’s handwriting, beautiful and careful with each loop of his cursive. it makes erwin’s heart seize–everything about this man is nothing short but awe-inspiring.

he reads it again. and a third time. there’s not much written on it, four words to be exact:  _he sees the sky._

erwin looks up, his eyebrows drawn close, and asks silently for an explanation. “i don’t know.” levi says quietly.

“a mantra?”

“i guess.” levi trails. there’s something he’s not saying, something he’s unable to say, but is trying to find the words. he sighs with frustration before settling on something. “i guess i forget sometimes.”

“forget what?”

“why i’m here.”

erwin places the paper down onto the desk. “to protect and free humanity, was it not?”

“yes.” levi says. “or it was.” levi turns his gaze up to the office windows behind erwin. he’s afraid he’s already said too much.

“how do you mean?”

“i should be looking at the sky too.”

erwin runs a hand along his cheek, his brow creasing with more thought, as if levi has presented him with an incredibly difficult riddle. “i am not sure i follow.”

“you’ve become my sky.”

erwin looks up from the paper, stares slack jawed at his captain who refuses to look back at him. there’s a sadness in levi’s eyes, something darker than usual. erwin has seen him deal with grief, has seen the minute differences of the creases of his skin as he works through each emotion. but this brought out lines along his eyes that made him look much older than his age, like the reveal had taken twenty years off of his life and cast it ugly across his features.

“i see…”

he sees now. this secret that is not a secret. this secret that levi wore in his pocket, a reminder to deny his feelings in the face of freedom. that outside of erwin’s office and bedroom, he has to play the role of weapon for humanity, to dedicate his heart to _them_ instead of _him_. and even though they knew–their soldiers, hange, mike, nanaba… they never once felt the hesitation levi always had to fight against. the need and desire to protect one–to live and fight for erwin and erwin alone.

erwin folds the paper again, making sure to fold exactly as it had been so many times in the past and leaves it on the center of his desk. “it is difficult for me at times as well.” 

levi looks at him now, the whites of his eyes showing more. “how?”

“you are my soldier.” erwin closes his eyes and sighs softly out of his nose. “i fear the day i hesitate to put you into harm’s way.”

levi studies erwin, watches as erwin’s face falls into blankness fitting only for stone, and leans over to pick up the paper. he holds it over the candle flame, waits for it to catch before pulling it out and letting it burn between his fingers. they both watch, the flames licking and crawling up ladders of burning paper, until levi shakes his hand and lets the small nub of parchment fall to the desk and burn itself to ash.

“we can’t let anything get in the way.” levi says flatly.

erwin’s lips draw thin. he nods once, slowly, morosely. “understood.” but he doesn’t, and neither does levi. 

war knows no bounds–much like love. but they never, ever wanted to have to find it. never thought they _could_ find it. never thought they were _worthy_ of finding it. and now they wish it to be a thing that never had found its way to them. to not have it etched so deeply upon their hearts, burning under the shadows of white and blue wings and along fields of bloodied men. 

where the only futures that were open to them were ones that could hold no promises.


	40. would you kindly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: would you kindly
> 
> "Short story request, "Would you kindly?""

people describe levi as a loose cannon. it’s not that his intentions are foul–no, they haven’t been since that day in the rain and mud. he has a clear path; a goal he can help to achieve. he knows what needs to be done, but he’ll do it on his own terms.

shadis tries to reprimand him, but nothings works. cleaning duties, physical exhaustion, cooking duty. the only thing that effects him is being told not to go on expeditions.

“that’s fucking bullshit.” levi spits at him.

“you watch your tongue, levi, or you’re shipping to the garrison.”

“fuck you! they’ll die out there with such few soldiers.” he looks at erwin, heated and protective all at once. “we’re still working out erwin’s long distance formation plans. we need more bodies for protection.”

erwin watches levi carefully, his hands folded behind his back. his jaw sets and his lips push together.

“levi. you are dismissed. if i find you sniffing around the stables in the morning, you’re gone. i’m serious.”

levi looks wild eyed at erwin, back at shadis, then at erwin again. “fucking suicidal morons. all of you.” he stomps off out of the office, erwin’s footsteps following close behind.

“levi.” erwin says firmly.

“shut up, idiot.” levi fumes.

“levi, would you kindly stop.”

levi halts in his spot, and erwin nearly rushes into his backside. he turns heel and glares up at the squad leader that only six months ago had saved his life. “i won’t be there with you.” levi hisses through his teeth.

“i’ve been on over a dozen expeditions at this point, levi. i can handle my own out there.”

“under this oaf, though?” levi points an open palm at the closed door, his face painted in wild disbelief.

“you need to know when to fight and when to roll over.”

“i guess you’re an oaf too.”

“levi.”

levi turns and continues down the hall, makes his way toward the armory. he needs to let off some steam before he unleashes it across erwin’s face. “no. i have to be there.”

“why?” erwin follows him.

“it’s a… it’s a feeling.” levi says quietly as he rushes down a hallway. it’s empty and lit with touches. the stale air makes him draw in a breath so large it makes him want to slump against the cold stone walls. erwin grabs his arm, drags him back to spin and look at him.

“feelings don’t win anything.”

“do they not?”

“no.” erwin’s eyes look beautiful when mixed with the orange of the torchlight–like a setting sun over a fields of wheat. the tendons in levi’s neck tighten.

“you aren’t fit to be a squad leader.”

“excuse me?”

“you need to be in the center. you need to be commanding us.” levi looks away.

erwin’s back straightens, his face set and lips tight. the shadows casting across his face make him look more imposing than he is to levi. he never commands levi. he asks, and levi reciprocates. “would you kindly not bring that up again.”

“quit it. you know it’s true.”

“it is treacherous talk, and you are too valuable.”

“hah. sure.”

“please listen to him this time. you will be alongside me again soon.”

levi’s eyes glide up to erwin’s. he sucks in a soft breath and lets out slowly. fighting alongside erwin is all he wants anymore, and to protect him is what the blood in his body demands him to do. it’s hard for him to stand here and bow to his request when it could mean his death. “grow some balls and make sure he doesn’t fuck you and everybody else.”

“we’ll come back alive.”

“promise?”

“i can’t promise.”

“would you kindly?”

erwin smiles a sad, defeated smile, but says nothing.

the next day, shadis refuses the formation. they return with 50% less soldiers than what they left with, and levi tends to fresh wounds across erwin’s chest in silent discontent. erwin holds his hand, looks him in the eyes, and speaks without words. they’re saying that he wouldn’t let it happen again.

never again.


	41. dark paradise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for panterrarty-ships-eruri. prompt: dark paradise
> 
> "Helllooouuuu~ ! I really really enjoy your work. Makes me feel all kind of things for my lovely eruris ♥ So thank you so much for your work and effort! I was browsing through my playlists and found a song from Lana Del Rey "Dark Paradise" which reminds me of a time for Levi after Erwins Death. Could you maybe write a litte something inspired by that song? Pretty, pretty pleeeease! Love You! ♥ XO Panterrarty"

eight years wasn’t a long time. the plains outside of wall maria still look the same. he’s been outside four times before it fell, and his memories out there are the most vivid. and now that he’s seen what’s beyond it, where the ocean meets the shore, and it bothers him how it hasn’t changed.

he closes his eyes. feels the rain on his face from that day. feels the sun evaporating the water off his skin as he holds his snapblade to erwin’s neck. feels the rage boiling in him, his hand shaking, his body shivering. but he opened his eyes. erwin shouted at him, told him to fight _with_  him, that with levi’s strength they can save humanity. and levi changes in that moment, feels his entire life shift and about-face. he has lost his friends, his family, but he can avenge them. he can kill the titans, and erwin can show him how.

and like an idiot, like a fool, he follows him until his heart fills with more than loyalty. where he finds his will to fight so he can find a way to cast his eyes on him again. it’s dangerous, it’s selfish, but thinking of dying out there without seeing his commander again makes him stronger. makes him fight until his muscles feel like they can tear from the bone, until his lungs fill with so much heat they turn to dried meat. but he comes back. he always comes back. and eventually he joins erwin in his bed, under the sheets, inside and around his body, and he never lost himself so completely in anyone before.

his eyes open. and all that’s there is the plains. blue sky with scattered clouds. quiet and unassuming. titanless. they haven’t see the beast titan in two years. who knows if he’ll ever come back. maybe he’s died of dysentery, keeled over while taking a shit. and then his promise was wasted, unfulfilled, and what had levi done to erwin besides killed him? couldn’t even kill the asshole that ripped his commander open, took him away from him like he was a paper doll, like he was fucking _nothing_.

erwin is  _everything_.

he looks down the wall. fifty meters is tall. tall enough to kill if a body falls from it. he sees it as salvation from this. erwin had seen it before, tried the very same in desperation after he lost his arm. and levi silently vowed he would never attempt the same. yet here he is for the fourth time with ill maintained gear, with reels that are not oiled, canisters of gas near empty. his death can be a miscalculation, a tragedy. quiet and unassuming.

he steps off the edge. falls with his cape fluttering behind him like the feathers of a diving falcon. he closes his eyes, feels the tears slicing against his cheeks. and he sees erwin behind them, feels him embracing him, hears him whispering words he should have never _ever_ said to him. words that break him now more than anything else could.

_thank you, levi._

but what if he’s not there. levi, what if he won’t meet you? what if hell is a place that can’t hold men like you. won’t allow you to see each other because you’ve killed too many men–corps members, military police, titans.

what if he’s not there?

oh goddesses, _what if he’s not there_?

he spins and grapples. the sudden jerk cracks his spine, his eyes blowing wide as he gasps in air. his body swings and smashes against the wall, and it takes several minutes for his eyes to readjust, to see just how close he was this time to falling the whole way. three meters between him and the ground. so close this time.

he presses his forehead to the dirty wall. he drags fingernails against the crystallized titan skin that composes the walls. his life for eight years has been titans. no… it’s been erwin. only a third of his miserable shitty life, but he never truly _lived_  before erwin. what if… what if he didn’t save erwin from hell; what if he sent him to hell?

he closes his eyes. he releases his hooks and lets himself fall the remaining height to land heavily on his arm. it cracks, and the pain ignites up his arm, but he fucking deserves it. he lays on it, staring off at the open, empty plains. the pain makes him delirious. what if he’s out there… what if he’s out beyond the ocean? what if he’s seen how high the sky can go? 

he sits up, holds his arm for a long time until the sun crests over the horizon in brilliant pinks and oranges. he stands up weakly, shuffles his feet along grass that reaches past his ankles. he walks until it’s dark, until the stars come out, until his legs can barely carry him anymore, until the sun rises again, until he sinks to the ground from exhaustion and pain and desperation.

he closes his eyes, and it’s like a dark paradise, and maybe in his dreams he’ll see him again, and he won’t ever have to wake again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing this while listening to the song destroyed me, and was the first time i cried while writing something. what is actually wrong with me?


	42. scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: scars
> 
> "Who was the first one to say 'I love you'?"
> 
> Inspired by [auticora's beautiful drawing](http://autiacora.tumblr.com/post/160199256386/scar-commissions-for-the-memoirs-of-a-thank-you) and [fleckofpoppy's twitterfic of the day 5/1/17](https://flecksofpoppy.tumblr.com/post/160190295658/erwin-levi-fuck-before-they-kiss-when-they)

erwin never shies away from levi’s lips on his skin. not even the first time. a busted knuckle, bandaged and clean, the pressure of levi’s lips against it bringing a tinge of pain that recedes to a tingle. a soft gaze through half lidded eyes, lips thin and unaffected. it felt natural. it felt right.

levi doesn’t look at him. doesn’t make it a spectacle. it’s an appreciation–a sign of respect. of dedication. of loyalty. levi does it in front of their soldiers on base, doesn’t care what they may whisper. he thinks everybody should be doing the same–this man that has given them all hope. they should be so lucky to serve under a commander as capable as he. he remembers the days when he did not. he remembers the lives they lost.

the first time they fuck it’s over the edge of erwin’s desk. erwin hesitates through his eagerness, finds his hands roaming across skin he’s only seen through damaged clothing. he hisses through his teeth as he traces across scars he remembers bleeding, presses hard into the tissue as his hips hit the back of levi’s thighs. he moans in time with the man below him, forgets for a moment that he’s commander and that’s his captain, and they are nothing but two men who have found solace in each other’s flesh.

they kiss the second time they have sex, but it’s harsh and hurried, up against a wall, levi’s hips pinned against erwin’s. there’s nothing but teeth–levi pressing an imprint of his crooked bottom teeth into the softness of erwin’s bottom lip. he pulls and tugs, lets erwin roam his hands around him and remove his jacket, lets him hike him up against the wall with his ass exposed against erwin’s cock. his head throws back, and erwin wants to kiss him again, but he’s trying too hard to keep quiet. he’s occupying his own lips between his teeth until his orgasm spills between them and levi’s mouth is too agape to seal against his own.

levi kisses the scar on erwin’s palm. it’s thick and white, takes space when erwin clenches his fist. he’s never been able to close it completely since that day. levi did this to him; this is his. he kisses along the whole line, not looking up at erwin, curls his fingers around the tips of erwin’s, gentle enough that they barely touch. he lingers on the scar, keeps pressing his lips to it, leans his cheek into erwin’s hand as he breathes softly into it the palm. erwin take him between his hands, pulls levi’s body up to him. he looks in those grey eyes–they say so much with so little, and erwin hates the thought of seeing them grow dull. he kisses his captain with a tenderness neither of them have ever known. and they both know–they both whimper into the other’s mouthes, and they feel like they’re flying through the trees, high in the air, but they’ve never been so grounded in their entire life. 

levi traces a scar that snakes across erwin’s shoulder blades. it happened long before levi met erwin–a time where he almost died in the grasp of a titan’s jaws. mike had been there for him–sliced along the jaw to make the titan’s mouth fall open in order to pull erwin out, slimy and bloody but alive. he places a kiss to it, loves the feeling of memories against his lips, that each one was a time that threatened to remove erwin from his life, but he was too strong to die. 

it has been years since they met, years since they started sharing their beds, years of kisses and touches. levi knows so much about erwin, and erwin knows so much about him. and it was all mapped out on their bodies for each other to discover.

they don’t talk about what it means. what the kisses and the sex and the intimate times spent in bed talking about lives that saw little else but war. it never matters. they are a connection of trust and loyalty, a mobius strip of commander and captain and leader and liege. so when he says it he stops, seals his lips to a flat scar erwin has from a splintered branch, and screws his eyes shut.

“what did you say?” erwin says. it’s low. stern. terrifying.

“nothing.” levi says, resting his cheek on erwin’s shoulder. he curls into erwin’s body and hopes he’ll drop it.

“levi.”

“don’t make me repeat it.” levi’s voice shakes. because there isn’t supposed to be a name to this. it’s not supposed to matter.

erwin breathes softly, rests his cheek on his arm and closes his eyes again. levi remains tense, fingers moving softly against ranges of scars on erwin’s back, until it’s clear that they’ll never speak of it again. that both of them will die without out ever admitting the thing they so desperately want to admit.


	43. daddy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: daddy
> 
> "Do you think Erwin would let Levi (or any other sex partner; not that that would happen) call him daddy?"

levi sweeps his ass up, jarring into place, as he shakes his hips to the side, his hands planted firmly on his knees. he looks behind him, sees his boyfriend looking across him, his legs spread out and a finger curled over curved lips. there’s a bulge pressing hard and firm against his slacks, and it makes levi’s groin ache more to see that he was the one that caused it.

he runs his fingers up his thighs, straightens his back, his hands running across toned abs, perky nipples, and finally up to his neck. he presses his palms to it, feels his heartbeat pound against it. he smiles and turns his head to the other side, fluidly and slyly, and erwin’s moved his hands to his lap, his fingers gripping against his pants legs.

levi turns, anchors erwin’s left knee between his legs. leaning forward, he teases his lips against erwin’s but doesn’t let him taste him. doesn’t let him feel his warmth. he stands back up, hooks his thumbs into the dark lace of the panties erwin had bought him, and bites his bottom lip.

“don’t do that.” erwin groans, his hips jutting off of the seat in the living room. he moves to touch levi, but levi tuts him away.

“no touching.” he says, and his voice is like syrup–sweet and sticky and thick. it makes erwin groan.

“what can i do?”

“tell me how you’d want to touch me.”

erwin’s eyes grow wide, and his chest noticeably heaves. he looks up and down levi’s body, and by the way he hovers over certain parts, levi can imagine what he’s thinking. “i want to feel up your legs, from calf to thigh. grab your ass and pull you close and sink my teeth into your hipbone.”  
  
levi moves away from erwin, places himself within his legs, dips down, then pops back up, swaying his hips as he does. “mmm, sounds nice.”

erwin stares at levi as if he’s the only thing in his world, as if he stopped he may die. “i’d lick your nipples until they’re red. bite them so hard until you moan like a good boy.”

“a good boy?” levi says.

erwin can’t stop the smile from stretching across his lips. “i’d take that cock of yours into my hand, make you drip and quiver for my mouth to be around it. have you _begging_  me for it.”

“for a man that’s not allowed to touch me, you sure do talk big.” levi sneers. he trails his fingers lightly up and across his groin, snaps his hands behind him and slaps his ass. erwin winces, breathes out through his nose, and there’s a fierceness in his eyes now that makes levi’s heart skip. “do you want me to beg for it, daddy?”

“yes.”

levi can’t deny the ache in his cock. it’s tight against the panties, hard and a little too long and ill-fitting for them, the tip of it threatening to peak over the elastic band of the black lace. “do you want me to beg for you to fuck me, daddy?”

“oh yes.”

levi leans in, hikes his leg up, pushes his barefoot against erwin’s crotch, softly at first, then applying pressure as his eyes go soft. erwin maintains composure, but he’s about the break. he glares up at levi. “i’d like to see you try.” levi muses.

“i don’t have to try.” he sweeps levi’s legs to the other side of him, grabs levi by the ass, and settles him onto his lap. levi gasps against his mouth, his chest pressed against the silk of erwin’s tie. “you’re always a good boy for daddy.”


	44. date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: date
> 
> "Do you think Levi would ever ask Erwin on a date in canon?"

“do you like suits, levi?”

“i’m from the underground…”

“yes, i know. however, that does not answer my question: do you like suits?”

levi looks up at erwin, shrugs, and returns his focus to the road ahead of him.

–

“have you ever had a fruit tart before?”

“no.”

“would you like to?”

levi looks over at erwin, shrugs, and kicks his feet up on the chaise to lean back and take a nap.

–

“have you ever been on a picnic?”

“sure. my whole life is a picnic.”

“levi.”

“no. i haven’t.”

“if you were presented the opportunity, would you?”

levi turns to look at erwin, shrugs, and backs into the mess hall to join the other soldiers for dinner.

–

“meet me on the roof at 2000 hours.” levi says.

“excuse me?” erwin looks up from his paperwork. the command is unlike levi–stern and without wiggle room. it’s clear before even asking that he is not going to take no for an answer.

“and fucking dress down or something. look a little like a human for one time in your damn life.”

2000 hours rolls around, the sun has set and the soft chirp of crickets sing into the humid summer air. erwin climbs the cool spiral stairs up to the roof, his hand guiding along the stone until he pushes the wooden door open and is hit with the dying heat of the day. he looks around cautiously before stepping out, the survey corps flags flapping and snapping in the breeze above him. he spots levi huddled in the corner of the roof, and he makes his way over to him.

“good evening, levi.”

“erwin.”

levi is dressed in his black slacks, dress shoes, white button up, his cravat still neatly tied around his neck. he’s sitting on his dress jacket, though the arms a bit too long, and it makes erwin smile. “what is all this?” erwin asks.

“nothing.”

erwin kneels down. he did his best to dress appropriately, but they both know erwin is incapable of turning off his commander side when his eyes are still open. he has a removed his uniform jacket and the top of his harness hangs loosely around his his waist. he moves aside a handkerchief that is covering the top of a basket and reveals two sweet tarts, and erwin finds it impossible to keep a toothy smile at bay. “they look delicious.”

“they better be. damn near cost me a week of pay.”

“really? ‘humanity’s strongest’ makes so little?”

“you’re the one that pays me.”

erwin chuckles. “you must have gone to mitras to get these then.”

levi is silent. after a moment, he shrugs.

erwin reaches into the basket and takes one tart for himself and hands the other to levi. levi takes it between his thumb and index finger, matches eyes with erwin, then takes a delicate bite from it, making sure to cover his mouth as he chews.

“it’s delicious.” erwin says, his mouth half full.

“it’s all right.” levi says after swallowing.

erwin looks down at his treat, feels a little bashful, but strangely content. happy. they finish their food under the open stars, talk little and instead enjoy each other’s company, and return inside to erwin’s office when the anxiety of the war presses too heavily on them to allow them a brief reprieve from it all.


	45. getting old

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: getting old
> 
> "prompt: eruri married couple in a modern au, one of them is going gray but really doesn't want to, so he starts secretly dyeing his hair because HE CAN'T BE OLD YET."

“What’s this?” Levi squints at the grocery receipt, because if Levi is anything, he’s thorough. Nothing slips by their finances. He’s in the off season, and they’re living off of savings and Erwin’s salary. There’s a reason for the organized coupon folder. Each tab is an aisle, sorted then by expiration date and coupon type. He makes sure they only go to grocery stores that double them, has loyalty cards to all of the local chains. They have a stockpile large enough to live on for six months, because it’s a real possibility. Teachers don’t make much either.

“What, hun?”

Levi grabs his highlighter, fluorescent pink and wide tipped. He streaks it across the line item, and then pushes it across the table toward Erwin. “That.”

Erwin leans over, sticking a piece of toast into his mouth as he skims across the receipt. “Let me see… Oh… _Oh_.” He looks up at Levi, his cheeks growing noticeably red.

“I know what it is.”

“I should have asked.”

“Yes, you should have.” He takes the receipt back and files it into his monthly budget folders. “I have a coupon.”

“Are you mad?”

“I’m confused.” Levi motions Erwin to come closer, and like a good husband, he obeys. Running his hands through Erwin’s hair, hair that is already styled and sticky with pomade, he tugs stiffly at the roots to pull him in for a closer look. Eyes narrow, fingers curling and piling strands of hair about like a big nest of yellow straw. “How can you tell?”

“I already used it.”

Levi pulls on Erwin’s hair, makes Erwin whine against hair that threatens to be pulled out. “But you’re blond. Blond as the fuckin’ sun. How could you tell you were go–”

Erwin pulls aways even though his hair is still tangled in his husband’s fingers. “I’m going to be late.”

“No no no.” Levi gets up and follows. He’s a whole foot shorter than Erwin, but he nearly climbs on top of him to continue combing his hands through his hair. “Are you really going grey?!”

“Stop it, Levi!” Erwin tries to shoo him away, nearly trips over his feet as he tries to pry his small husband off of him.

“I can’t believe you give a shit!” Levi says, finally giving Erwin a rest. He stands in the foyer entrance as Erwin slips on his work shoes. He crosses his arms and plays with the plush fuzz on his robe. “You know I don’t care, right?”

“Yes, I know that.” Erwin doesn’t look at him. He stands up and looks at himself in the mirror above the entryway table. He tries to push his hair back into place, but can’t seem to get a few of the strands to stick down. Sighing, he grabs his leather satchel and slings it over his shoulder. “I’ll see you tonight for dinner, darling.”

Erwin turns to go for the door, but Levi tugs his arm back so hard that he spins into his arms. They nearly stumble into the stairs, but Levi is a dancer–he has enough muscle for the both of them. He pulls Erwin down, kisses him deep, mussing his hands in his husband’s hair again, smiling coyly against his lips as they part. “Old men are kinda sexy, you know.”

“Lee.” Erwin groans.

“You’re stuck with me, babe. Just like I’m stuck with you.”

“This isn’t helping.” But Erwin’s smiling. He pecks Levi’s lips and nuzzles his nose against his cheek.

“I don’t ever want to see hair dye on our grocery list again, you hear me?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Good.” Levi pushes himself away, waits for Erwin to turn before slapping a broad hand across his ass. “Don’t rob any cradles with your geriatric good looks.”

“I hate you.”

“I love you.”

They smile at each other. Erwin puckers and blows a kiss as he leaves out the door, and Levi catches it tightly in the palm of his hand and sticks it in the pocket of his robe.


	46. moving on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for autiacora. prompt: moving on
> 
> "Do you think Isayama will destroy eruri by giving Levi person to love?"

they lost it all.

they lost it all and in it they found each other. 

not physically, not at first. but in those spaces where concerned quips and sure commands used to be. 

levi follows hange, offers those words that moblit said so many times before. cautions against creatures that crawl from the sea, protects them from overactive titans, pulls the drink from their hands when words become too difficult to pronounce. because if they die… if they die.

hange commands levi, offers guidance to a soul that’s lost itself without his liege. erwin comes out through their voice, gentle demands that aren’t demands, because you can’t be commanded if you trust. you can’t question if you respect. because if he dies… if he dies.

they find clothes to be a heavy thing, discard them on the floor as they rush into levi’s quarters. they’re clean and pristine and levi doesn’t care when they muss up his bed, when they leave the clothes on the floor until the next day. they feel dirty when it’s over. they weren’t thinking of each other, they were thinking of those spaces in between, the fractures in their beings that used to be filled with something. fractures turned to breaks that hurt to put pressure on, where every day misaligned the healing, made them ugly.

so ugly.

they try again, hange’s cheek against levi’s back, swollen scars pressing against their skin as they thrust into levi. the summer heat is hot, they’re sweating, and it’s gross, wrong. but levi comes anyway, cries out into a the sheets of his bed that he hasn’t washed in weeks. hange finishes themself against levi’s spent cock, pushes his hair away from his brow and hesitantly kisses the balmy skin. they sit in silence, asking the other what they’ve done without words. they have no answers.

so wrong.

“no.” levi says when hange takes him by the belt of his chest. “we can’t.”

hange stares at him with one eye, blinks, then lets go with a nod. “right.”

they dance around each other. find loneliness to be too strong. there’s nine of them now. two of them that have seen over six years of hell. they’re the only ones that understand. they find brief comfort again between tangled legs. levi makes hange wash before they bed together, asks them to wear his cologne. they draw the curtains closed so they don’t have to see; so they can imagine. it’s for their reptile brains. it’s so their mammal brains can function. it’s so they can be human.

“no.” hange says when levi runs his fingers through long hair. “not now.”

levi pulls his hands back, rubs his fingers together and scoffs. “whatever.”

they continue. they rotate. they fluctuate. they have each other because they had too much before. now they’re the only ones that understand. and for a brief moment, they’re whole, they’re healed. but then the sun rises, and they become commander and captain once again, and they splinter and fragment like sunlight casting against the surface of a lake.


	47. flower shop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for potterwhos. prompt: flower shop
> 
> "If u are still taking prompts, can I request an eruri flowershop au with side Yumikuri and/or Jearmin with a bit of angst mixed in? I hope that isn't too broad. ^♡^ thank u"

“who’s armin?” levi asks. he’s written the name so many times, it might as well be his own.

jean looks around the flower shop, eyes setting on a display of lilies. there’s a faint blush on his cheeks, and he sinks into the powder blue scarf around his neck. “someone.”

“no shit.” levi says. his remarkable penmanship has come in handy–a blessing and a curse. it made schmucks like jean’s day easier, the customer that comes in so frequently he nearly pays for levi to open the shop. on the other hand, valentine’s day and mother’s day were hell on his wrist. no amount of braces or painkillers could alleviate that pain. “she must be really special.”

jean taps his finger on the counter. he still doesn’t look at levi. “he is.”

levi hums, holds back a smile, but his interest isn’t feigned. “does he like flowers?” he finishes writing the message requested in the card, slides it over to jean for him to sign in his abysmal handwriting.

“he doesn’t seem to complain.”

“you’ve come in here every day for the past three weeks. his house must be a greenhouse by now.”

“do you think?”

“i hope he likes dumb men.”

jean finishes the stroke on the ‘n’ in his last name and glares up at levi. “do you talk to all your customers like this.”

“only the dumb ones.” levi wraps the stems of the flowers in tissue paper, carefully folds and seals the edge with a colored piece of tape.

“i could go elsewhere.”

“and what, go to yeager’s place across town? his flowers are dead within a day.” levi looks up at jean. “actually, that might work out for you.”

“fuck you, old man.”

levi shrugs, tucks the sheers back into his apron after he cuts a piece of kraft paper to wrap around the outside of the bouquet. “why are you so head over heels for this ‘armin’?”

jean watches as levi deftly rolls the bouquet up, ties a piece of twine around the middle. just like he always does. “he’s smart.”

“so?”

“let me finish. you fucking asked.” jean barks, and levi fights a grin. “he’s smart, selfless, protective, kind, curious… like i swear, i can look into his eyes and see the ocean.”

“blue eyes, huh?”

“and golden hair…”

“sounds like somebody i know.” levi looks up past jean. jean raises an eyebrow and turns his head. down the aisle of cut flowers is a tall blonde man in a long wool peacoat. his hair is slicked back, his nose buried deep in an aster. “just as idiotic as well.”

“you know what they say about blondes.”

“couldn’t be any more fuckin’ true.” levi shakes his head. he takes the card from jean and tucks it into the bouquet. he pauses with his hands on the paper of the flowers, sets his jaw and nods. “it’s on the house today.”

“really?”

“on one condition.”

“what’s that?”

“you ask your idiot out.”

“what about you?”

“what do you mean ‘what about you’?”

“ask your idiot out.”

they both look at the man in the aisle. he looks confused, even though he’s been there almost as many times as jean has. only his cards were always addressed to some woman with an impossible name. he realized he may not be here for her when he spelled her name wrong one time. “sure.”

“thanks, levi.”

“whatever, kid. get out, i have business to do.”

jean smiles wide, waves a salute on his way out the door, the door bell jingling behind him. levi remains at the counter, tapping his fingers on the surface until finally growing the muster to go down the aisle and claim his stupid blonde. “hey.” levi says.

“oh, good afternoon, levi.”

“what ugly bouquet do you plan to assemble today, erwin?”

“well, that is very unprofessional of you.” he smiles down at him. he looks at the flowers he selected in his hands and gives a knowing grin. “they are rather hideous together, aren’t they?”

“what’s the occasion?” levi takes the flowers from erwin and returns them into their proper tubs.

“just because.”

“and yesterday?”

“just because.”

“and the day before that?”

“… just because.” erwin chuckles. it comes from a place deep in his chest, rumbles and bubbles like champagne. “she really likes flowers.”

“does she now…” levi turns back, looks at erwin with an unamused gaze. “do you happen to be dating this jezebel?”

“not… entirely. no.” erwin reaches over levi and picks up a gerber.

“put it back.”

erwin puts the gerber back, shrinks back as if he’s done something wrong. “not yet anyway.”

“interesting.”

“how so?”

“well, you seem to always come here when i’m here.”

“do you not own the store?”

“you always look at me when i ring you out.”

“we are establishing a transaction. what else would you like me to do?”

“you also stare at my ass when i’m watering the hanging plants.”

“what…”

“there’s mirrors everywhere.” he points up around the ceilings. “it makes the place look brighter, and helps me spot creeps.”

erwin’s cheeks dust a carnation pink. “you must be mistaken.”

levi pulls together seven flowers from their tubs, aligns them effortlessly, and erwin’s lips part in silent awe. “i’m not mad.”

“excuse me…”

“so who are we making these out to today? jezebel with one ‘l’ or two?” levi walks around the counter, removes the sheers from his apron and snips the ends.

“one ‘l’.” erwin says.

“mhm.” he wraps the bouquet in cellophane, then pulls out blue tissue paper to triangle along the base.

“‘e’ ‘v’ ‘i’.” erwin says almost shyly.

levi pauses, closes his eyes, and smiles a thin smile. “i fuckin’ knew it.”

“i apologize.” erwin shifts in his spot.

“i don’t need any of my own fuckin’ flowers.” levi looks up at him. god damn if erwin isn’t the most charmingly gorgeous idiot he’s ever seen. “i do enjoy dinner, though.”

“yes. yes of course.”

“something expensive.”

“all right.”

“like ruby tuesdays.”

erwin double takes. “what?”

levi chuckles, his smile turning toothy. “the offer expires as soon as i finish wrapping these up.”

“tonight?”

levi ties the twine around the bouquet, writes on the kraft paper in big loopy handing writing: erwin. he hands them to the man with a nod. “it’s a date.”


	48. delusions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: delusions
> 
> "For the prompts: how about reincarnation?"

he looks like he did back then. everything but the scars, that is. levi still can’t get used to it sometimes. he trails his hand down bare skin without resistance, fingers fall across plains instead of hills. the runes of ruins no longer there, still cry out to him like a needle to a record. the one on his shoulder blade was from a splintered piece of a supply cart. the one down the ridge of his back from taking a spill on a horse and landing on a log. the ones on his legs from when his harness broke, strangled his thighs until his legs turned purple, and levi had to cut them free.

all of those are gone now. erwin is a teacher, a history teacher, and he’s never had to take up a sword or a gun or a knife to protect his life. he talks about that kind of life, has an obsession with medieval times… knights and their squires charging into battle for gods and land and nationality. he owns a suit of armor in his living room that he taught levi how to clean. levi hates it. it’s tacky. it reminds him of metal scabbards and oil and the sound of a metal reel casting him up through trees, into the sky, his stomach lurching and spinning.

hitting bones with his blades, feeling it travel up his arms like a thundershock, riling his stomach into sickness.

they’re different in this life. there are more things to nitpick, to question, to stoke into anger when before those things didn’t matter. a calm life gives them time to think. sometimes levi wishes it didn’t.

he wonders what he ever saw in erwin in that life. a suicidal martyr, taking risks with countless men’s lives as if they were pieces of wood to place into a fire. let it burn out, rally out the troops with words of hope and humanity, give them to power to throw themselves into the fire instead. levi had done it. he had followed erwin until the end. allowed his commander to rest so he could live on in a hell with flames that didn’t have a taste for him, even though he walked straight through them.

and he’s still the same, just reconfigured, upgraded, and adjusted. he’s still quiet and secretive and charming. protective and caring and loving. ruthless and cruel and daring. but everything seems to echo a life that needed that, and in this life he wants erwin to just be _normal_. to put down the damn books and guilt and determination and enjoy what they have: a life without titans.

he wraps his arms around erwin, rests his chin on his shoulder. he unbuttons the top button of erwin’s dress shirt, does it from memory like he did so many times in erwin’s office. he places a kiss in his neck, drags his tongue up to his adam’s apple until erwin groans and moves his head away. “levi.”

“erwin.”

“i’m busy.”

“i don’t care.”

“i know you don’t, but i do. please, leave me alone.”

levi steps back, anger capturing his chest into a gasp. “none of this matters.”

“levi.”

“it doesn’t. just put the damn homework away–the brats won’t remember any of the shit you teach them anyway.”

“levi.” erwin’s voice drops into some sad, something familiar. like if he has to say levi’s name one more time he may shatter to the floor into pieces.

“it just doesn’t matter! who the fuck cares!” levi steps back and braces his hand on the table. their simple life isn’t that anymore. it can’t be. they’re inside wall sina, living like rich pigs in cloaks of satin. scoffing at those that tend the fields, those that live in the underground. what are they doing here?

they should have their wings.

“levi. darling.”

“when there’s titans out there, and we’re sitting in here doing nothing. didn’t you use to say… you use to say that we would fight them together. that if we dedicated our hearts…” levi leans heavily into the table and starts to double over.

“i said things like that?” erwin is moving to stand up, his hand on the back of his chair.

“yeah… yeah, you don’t remember?”

“i am afraid i do not.”

“but you said them…” levi sits against the desk, head hanging low, but erwin takes him, wraps his strong arms around him like he always did.

“i am sure i did, levi. i apologize for forgetting.”

“why can’t you remember?”

“i will try harder.” he places a gentle kiss on levi’s heads, rubs a soft circle across his back. “how about we go cook some dinner?”

levi blinks away tears he doesn’t know how they got there. and he’s in erwin’s arms, in his office, and they’re married and they have a child and the scars on his arms are never going to fade away and he tries to remember what he was talking about and why his husband has him held to him so tightly. “what do you wanna eat?”

“anything.”

levi nods slowly, nuzzles his nose into erwin’s chest and breathes out. “ok.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> erwin doesn't remember, levi does. levi is diagnosed with schizophrenia or something similar. i actually like this idea a lot. i would love to turn this into something more.


	49. dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for tsukinoyoukai. prompt: dinner
> 
> "(ღ˘⌣˘ღ) Levi brings food to Erwin when he is neglecting his meals,doesn't him? Erwin secretly does it so he can eat with Levi also."

a soldier’s life is full of emptiness, right down to stomaches that rumble and gurgle at the smell of a campfire. when on the field, they survive on rations: thickly packed tins of fish and offal meats and packets of saltless crackers. at home they eat better: undetermined slop of grains, potatoes with eyes big enough to blink back, and withered vegetables from the fields that did not fair very well over the winter.

they can’t complain though. at least they have meals to eat with the lives that they still have. and at least times on base outweigh the times on expeditions–some of them never even got the chance to break into their rations before they became one for a titan.

erwin never has been particularly fond of military food. he spent the first decade of his life well off enough to have fresh meat a couple of times a month, dried meat a couple of times a week. his vegetables were bright, varied, and crisp. he even had fruit sometimes. and now, two decades between then and now, he still never acquired a taste for the tasteless. when dinnertime comes around, he tends to sit in his office munching on some canned treat he bought with his salary. he was going to be a commander until his dying breath–what else was he going to spend his money on?

it changes a little when levi enters his life. quiet but all so particular. he’s a stickler for routines and health and cleanliness. as their orbits grow closer, he watches out for erwin. erwin wouldn’t deny that it annoys him at first. he had never been told by another solider he couldn’t do something as mundane as staying in his office until three in the morning. or leave his jacket crumpled on the couch. or to leave base with his boots not oiled.

it was the finer details, the little things about how he lives his life that levi came in and applied his own brand of adhesive–making sure erwin ate was one of them. he comes into erwin’s office, a tray filled with two meals, and kicks the door gently behind him. erwin eyes the grandfather clock and tilts his head to hide a smile. 17:00.

levi walks to the desk, places the tray across erwin’s papers and maps, and removes his plate and cup to move to the couch to eat without a word. erwin places down his quill into the inkwell, leans back in his chair to let out a stretch, and then leans forward to pick up his fork. “thank you, levi.”

levi shrugs as he delicately shovels a spoon of slop into his mouth. levi has the habit of eating slowly and carefully, making sure no food ever displaces outside of his mouth, but he tends to get a little careless around erwin. a piece of rice sticks to the side of his lips as he goes for another round.

“how has your day been?” erwin asks. he shoves away a discolored bean with his fork.

“a waste of time.”

“how so?”

“the shipments from the capital were delayed, so we were missing new training blades and nape dummies.”

“we’ve been so low for such a long time.”

levi scoffs as he takes another bite of his meal and swallows it down. “we basically just stood around and stared at each other all day.”

“did you work on some close quarter combat in the mean time?”

levi looks up at erwin. close quarter combat was both of their favorites, especially when sparring together. their height and weight differences always made the combat a challenge–one that currently left them in a tie. 324 to 324. “i was hoping we could do that after dinner.”

“that may upset my stomach.”

“so you’re saying i’d win.”

“oh, most certainly.”

erwin doesn’t go to get his dinner anymore, not just because he allows his mind to consume the concept of time most days, but because it’s moments like these… when levi looks at him, creases a smile to his lips, a smile no other soul in the corps gets to witness, and lets it beat like a butterflies wings within the walls of his office between spoons of smashed rice and undercooked potatoes.


	50. winter romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for silvereyesandboloties. prompt: winter romance
> 
> "I was wondering if you could write something with these three things incorporated (however you want!): eruri, snow, and romance."

“have you ever been up north?”

“are you really asking me that?”

erwin chuckles and shakes his head. “i suppose that was an ignorant question. i should have phrased it as ‘would you like to travel north?’”

“why the fuck would i want to do that?”

erwin shifts in his chair to face levi. “as you know, each district has its own variety of culture–the underground was no exception. utopia has an interesting festival during the winter solstice that i have only attended once many years ago. our next expedition is not until the spring…”

“you’re really going to take a break?”

“if you will go with me, i certainly will.”

“no paperwork.”

“a little bit of paperwork.”

“ _no_  paperwok.”

they stare at each other, and there are some gazes that even the commander cannot yield to. “no paperwork.”

levi fingers the edge of his cravat, his face softened a little like butter over his victory. “when do we leave?”

“tonight.”

“dammit, erwin.”

“you think i would give you time to change your mind?”

levi sighs and shakes his head, irritated that erwin is right, as he tends to be. the bastard knows him far too well. he shifts his crossed leg down onto the floor and stands. “i’ll ready my things.”

 

\---

 

“no.”

“levi.”

“no, absolutely not.” levi starts to turn away.

“it’s the culture. you do not want to be rude do you?”

“like i give a fuck.” levi crosses his arms over his long military jacket as he stares daggers up at erwin. his breath plumes over the scruff of his gray scarf, his fingers clad in worn dark leather. he’s ready to jump back onto his mare and ride back in the frigid winter night if need be.

“this is the only place within the walls with natural hot springs.”

“i’m not getting naked in there with everybody else’s… bodies having been in there.”

“it will just be the two of us.”

levi’s cheeks heat even more. “i thought you said that this ritual or whatever was so some desperate idiots could find their ‘better halves’.”

“do we not match the description?”

levi gapes. he scoffs and looks away. “no.”

“it’s fascinating, really. the soil up here does not fair as well as those down south, despite the relatively short distance between locations. they take to rituals like this to inspire fertility of the land and of the people.”

“people fuck in the hot springs.”

“i never thought of that…”

“do you think of nothing but titans?” levi has made his decision. he makes his way back to his mare as a flurry begins to fall.

erwin stands with this head down and his bare hands buried deep in his pockets. “there is another ritual that is less… intimate.”

levi pauses in the street under a lamp light. it casts his face in deep shadows and paints his cheeks a rich auburn. “are you sure?”

“there are twisted pastries with a single dried berry in the center of it. each berry represents something different. the pair eats their own side of the twist until the reach the middle and reveal their fortune of sorts.”

if it is one thing that levi has come to enjoy about life above ground, it is fine tea and pastries. erwin, once again, knowing how to play his cards. levi fidgets but refuses to look up at erwin. “all the bakeries are closed.”

“ah, yes. i suppose you make a good point.”

“it’s too late to ride back to headquarters.”

“i do have an office here. i have not used it in a fair amount of time. however, i am sure we can find some cots to use and spend the night there.”

levi looks up, shakes his head and blinks several times as a snowflake lands in his eye. “ _if_  we can make it back to base tomorrow.”

levi swears he sees erwin grin, but it’s gone within a flash. “we shall see.”

it takes them a half hour to make it to the military base in utopia. they stall their horses, levi spending time to brush and blanket his horse as the wind howls outside of the stables. he meets erwin inside of the foyer of the stone building, shaking drifts of snow off his shoulders and from his hair. he sighs heavily as he steps toward erwin. “what are you doing?”

“i’m readying a heater. the office is freezing.”

“you brought us here to die, didn’t you?”

erwin chuckles again, and it’s like honey. there’s something different about it, and levi has to prop his hand on the back of a chair to stay steady. with care, erwin places some coals into a metal container and holds it by the handles as he leads the way up two sets of stairs. he asks levi to pull the key out of his pocket, levi fussing around in it for nearly a minute before finding it. he unlocks the door and leads them inside. 

that’s when levi realizes he’s been setup.

there’s a large futon rolled out in front of the burning fireplace with a pile of thick blankets. there’s a small table with a kettle and a finely ornate box next to it. it’s simple but cozy. levi flushes.

“what’s this?”

“you mean a great deal to me, levi.” erwin starts, follows levi as he enters deeper into the room. “our relationship has been… unconventional, yes, but i wished to do something special for you.”

“i wish you hadn’t.”

“and yet here we are.”

levi follows erwin who has put the heater down and placed the kettle on top. erwin sits on the futon and leans up to grab the box and hands it to levi. “open it.”

levi takes it, drags his fingers down the embossed cover of the box. it looks expensive, especially for their salaries. when he opens the box, he lets out an annoyed groan. “a twist pastry. from mitras?” he sets the box down and removes his gloves before pulling it out and leaving it in his open palm. “this will tell our ‘romantic fortune’?”

erwin grins, and levi returns it ever so slightly. “yes.”

the kettle whistles by the time they have stripped of their winter outdoor gear. they’ve unlatched their harnesses, and they lay limp at their sides over the front of their shirts. levi sits close enough to erwin that their legs touch under a big fluffy blanket. erwin prepares some tea for them as levi presents the pastry to his commander. “you start.” erwin tears a part of the pastry for himself and chews. “aren’t you supposed to feed it to me or something?” levi grins as erwin tears another piece and places it on the end of levi’s tongue. it’s so thin and flakey it nearly melts on it. he rolls his tongue back into his mouth and chews, proud of the flush he has painted across erwin’s cheeks. 

they make it to the center of the pastry after several sips of tea and deliberate flirting. “what do we have?” levi asks.

“a strawberry.” erwin picks at it with his finger.

“stop it. i want to eat that.” levi picks it out of puffy pastry and pops it in his mouth. he swallows it in one go. “what did that mean?”

“eternal love.”

“yeah fuckin’ right.”

“i would not lie to you.”

“well, i ate it, so i guess we’re shit out of luck.”

erwin takes the last bit of pastry and sticks it in his mouth, chews a few times before swallowing it down. “i am not so sure about that.” erwin leans over and takes levi’s fingers within his own. he hovers over levi’s lips before stealing a quick kiss. “i can imagine myself dying with the thought of your lips on mine, levi.”

“you’re disgusting.” levi says as he kisses back. but he knows it’s true. he knows he feels the same exact way.


	51. desolation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: desolation
> 
> "if i still cry because of erwin's pointless death - am i normal or just sick?"
> 
> (so you aren't. we're all hurting in some way. levi more than any of us.)

he’s in and on everything, and worse, he’s on levi. he can remove the items, push away the thoughts, but levi is levi and he can’t run away from that. and damn how he’s forgotten how to _be_  without him around.

levi had been a man that lived on his own for so long. thrived on independence because nobody could be trusted in the underground. until furlan. until isabel. they’re on everything, tangled in the cobwebs of his mind, and sometimes he pulls them down, dusts them off, polishes his knife or brushes his horse thinking of them. he tries to keep them fond. tries not to remember that day in the rain.

because if he does he thinks of _him_  and he can’t because he remembers how he doesn’t remember. how in that moment his life changed forever. where he wasn’t levi anymore but part of something bigger. greater.

people trust him because of his power. they trust their lives under levi’s blades, but that’s a feral kind of trust. _he_  trusted him with more than his life. he trusted him with his _love_.

and he’s fucking everywhere… in and on everything, and everything he does reminds him. pulls the scars open to bleed again and he forgets what it’s like to not have that smart of hot pain exposed and pried apart to bleed all over again. never scabbing. he tries to seer it shut, holds his breath underwater until he finally sucks in liquid instead of gas. falls from heights so high he would become nothing but a broken mess of feathers.

but he’s _everywhere_. in every corner of levi’s mind and he gasps for breath, grapples to safety. 

he doesn’t remember how to be. he’s forgotten who levi is without erwin. and it’s like swimming in a foggy lake, quiet and eerie, empty and desolate, uncertain and suffocating. and he dreams, he dreams of seeing him again, meeting _himself_ again, and becoming more than an empty husk, shucked and limp, dragging wisps of feather tips from the edges of his cloak against the dirt on the ground. he wants to stand straight, proud, somewhere in the emptiness of erwin’s right side. have his wings kiss sky again.

but he has to be levi now. has to feel the dirt on his feet again like in the underground… 

but levi without erwin is nothing.


	52. moving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for erwinsalive. prompt: moving
> 
> (she's moving and i'm so happy for her! congrats, babe!)

it happened over the course of a year. a blanket. a book. a few pairs of clothes. shoes. levi doesn’t have much, and by the end of it, the only thing left in his own apartment was furniture and decorations. everything else has been tucked away in the corners of erwin’s drawers–levi’s attempt at saying he did not mean to impose, that at any minute he could leave if erwin so wanted him to.

but he doesn’t. erwin asks it with levi’s legs wrapped around his waist, his back pressed against the wall, his lips a mere inch away from levi’s. “would you like to move in with me?”

levi wants to say no. wants to not make a big deal of it. but his lease is up at the end of next month, and it would save him from pretending it isn’t a thing that’s already going to happen. “sure.”

erwin’s smiling so much it almost gets in the way of the kisses he showers across levi’s face.

they spend the last day of levi’s lease at levi’s apartment. they fuck hard on the full-sized mattress, the sheets having already been removed, and the orange sticker peeling at the corner for trash pick up in the morning. levi’s had the mattress since he first moved out when he was twenty–got it second hand from a friend that moved cross country. it has a dip in it that he falls into as erwin lifts his legs up and hooks the inside of his knees over his shoulders. levi wonders if his neighbors will miss hearing his moaning–erwin’s name calling from his husky, sex dripped voice. he dares to investigate: “erwin! ahh. _fuck_.”

“ _levi_.” erwin says, thrusting hard and fast into levi. he comes hard, his throat stretched out above levi, his adam’s apple bobbing with each heaving breath as he chants levi’s name. levi pinches his nipples, causes erwin to nearly shout his name, and he grins wildly when erwin collapses on him, drained and empty, but hot and alive and 100% levi’s.

they can barely walk the next day when they bring the trash to the dumpster and the curb. levi drops his keys off at the office, adjusts the edges of his coat before walking back out to erwin’s suv. they load the few boxes and pieces of furniture into the car and to bring to erwin’s apartment–to _their_  apartment.

“are you ready?”

levi looks off at his apartment building. he’s moved from town to town, always feeling like he had been missing something–never quite feeling like _home_. this place almost felt like that–but only because of time and not love. plus, he’s never lived with a partner. it scares him still, even though it’s been months since he spent more than a few consecutive nights at his apartment. he shouldn’t be so afraid. erwin had invited him. he wants him.

“it’s a big deal.”

“yes.”

“i’m excited.” levi says, quiet and deadpan, his eyes focused on the door that had been his for four years.

erwin grins. “you sound it.”

levi looks at him, and he offers a smile. thin and small, but it reaches his eyes. it always does when he’s with erwin. “i am.”

“i am too.”

“let’s go home.” levi says.

erwin nods with a smile, puts the car into the reverse and pulls out of the parking lot. levi watches his apartment in the side mirror until he can’t read the number next to the door anymore. his eyes linger a little longer before he looks ahead at the road, to the future. he leans back in his seat and tries to contain the bubbles of happiness that stick to his insides.


	53. no sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for winglysimmer. prompt: no sex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more abusive eruri

“you think that will honestly work on me.” levi scoffs. he sets a dish on the drying rack and glares over his shoulder at erwin.

“of course.”

“i’ve gone months without masturbating before.”

“since we have started dating?”

levi is quiet.

“they say if you wait a month without sex, the orgasm is just that much better.”

“who’s ‘they’? are you watching oprah or something again?”

“may we try at least, please.”

“this is a form of a abuse, i hope you know.”

erwin rolls his eyes as he puts a dish away in the cupboard. “if you really feel that way, we do not have to.”

“i only say that because you try not fucking,” levi motions his free hands at erwin, sponge dripping water on the floor, “ _that_.”

erwin grins, takes another plate from the rack and dries it with a towel. “why, thank you.”

levi is quiet for a moment. “all right. but we start  _after_  tonight.”

erwin’s grin grows dark. he chuckles. “deal.”

—

levi has his hands balled in erwin’s hair, tugging it down into him as he hotly gasps his mouth against his. their tongues sloppily clash against the other, erwin moaning into levi’s mouth as he rams deep into levi, levi crying out from a hasty prep job. “ahh! erwin!”

they had been counting down the days. marked thirty days out with a hot pink marker on their calendar in the kitchen. they almost broke down one time while making out on the couch, but they followed through. and now erwin presses his hand to levi’s stomach, feels his cock push up and into levi with each desperate thrust. “oh  _god_.” erwin moans, pushes levi’s one leg up to meet his chest, the other wrapped and hooked around his waist. “i  _missed_  this.” he growls.

“shut up.” levi kisses erwin’s forehead, tugs his head down to meet his chest. “this was  _your_  idea.”

“it was a good one.” erwin says. he pulls himself up, tugs himself away from levi and moves a hand down and brushes past levi’s cock. trails down his balls and curls his fingers under them to press into his taint. levi’s eyes blow wide and he gasps as erwin starts to massage it, holds his leg with one hand as he draws out slow and thrusts back in even slower.

“holy  _shit_.” levi whines, writhes under erwin, the pressure of erwin’s fingers increasing with each drag of his cock in his ass. the feeling shoots up his cock, grinds a rock in his gut, and he pants heavily like a dog. “erwin!”

“does it feel good, darling?”

“ahh!!” levi screams, growls, throws his head back and tries to push his ass against erwin’s thighs. “ _yes!”_

erwin moves his hand up, cups his balls gingerly, rolls them before fingers before pressing his thumb up the underside of his cock and pump it in time with his thrusts. it only takes a couple of thrusts for levi to spill, muscles in his stomach flexing to reveal six individual muscles, his pecs bulging, his arm muscles pressing into paper skin. he comes hot on erwin, on himself, everywhere, in his hair, on his lip. he nearly cries, whines and squirms under the discomfort of over stimulation, doesn’t protest when erwin takes the hair at the back of his head and pulls it back, bites his neck as he brings himself to climax inside of him. they both gasp for breath, their nearly naked bodies sheen with sweat and cum and saliva.

levi throws his head back, screws his eyes shut as he tries to gather his breath again. “god dammit.”

erwin rolls to his side, stares at the ceiling with him. “what is it?”

“we were supposed to make it until midnight.”

“huh?”

“day thirty is tomorrow.”

“… oh. damn.”

“should we try again?” levi tilts his head, chest still heaving, but a sly smile perching on his lips.

“no. no. god no. that would be abusive.”

levi barks a laugh and nuzzles his nose into erwin’s arm. “told ya.”

“how am i not supposed to,” erwin gestures with his hands around levi, “make love to this?”

“you idiot.”

“yes, i will agree with you on that.”


	54. elemental affection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for mang-o. prompt: elemental affection.
> 
> "Okay, so, based on that post that Levi's only known a sort of tough love from Kenny... my prompt is: Levi starting to become more gentle and affectionate towards Erwin (because the love is too real, y'know?); and Erwin realizing this and responding to it. :)"

the difficulty of levi is his sharpness. it’s in his face, baked into his eyelashes and peaked at his cheekbones. the corners of his lips dimpled in deep shadows that repeat in all the hard angles of his body.

but he moves like liquid in a gaseous space, spins and lands on his feet like a cat, his fine hair catching inertia and snapping back against his brow. he catches erwin’s eyes on the training ground, all angles reconstructing and freezing him into place, and nods once before shooting into the air again.

he gets closer, sniffs around erwin like a stray cat looking for scraps. he huddles against walls when he’s noticed, looks out windows or at his fingernails when erwin happens a glance. and even though he’s heavy with muscle, he’s still light on his feet, startles erwin when he comes up behind him to demand his paperwork to be signed.

“oi.”

erwin jumps slightly, but composes himself, turns on his heels to face the smaller man. “oh, levi. how are you this evening?”

“here.” levi shoves a bundle of papers into his hand, rests his fingers on top of his and lets them linger for two seconds too long. they both notice. “the expense reports.”

erwin doesn’t move his hand, looks down at levi and nods once, and levi is the one that breaks their contact.

levi appears in the light more often. comes into his office unannounced and takes a seat on his sofa to read over reports and formations without saying a word. erwin doesn’t say anything about this man that is both solid and liquid, a heated element that can both poison and heal. he finds he enjoys the company, the quick quips of words that always seem to bring perspective. the occasional joke that reminds erwin what it’s like to laugh. he’s a welcome addition to his office, one he misses when he is not around.

the first time levi brings him tea, he pushes a stray piece of hair from erwin’s brow back into place. he doesn’t look at him, looks at himself in the dark tea as he tries to remember everything about the feeling of callous fingers scrapping across his forehead. he wonders if there’s something hidden in the touch, like the instinctual affection of a mother’s, or something as outrageous as the consideration from a soulmate. he sips a small amount into his mouth and swallows it down with his thoughts.

it’s not until levi has erwin in a sleeper hold on the training fields that it all seems to make sense. erwin’s on his knees struggling, but levi’s so damn strong he can’t quite get free. levi presses him down into the ground, shifts his leg on the other side of his back as erwin starts to lose consciousness. he leans into his ear, and like mustard gas his voice burns up erwin’s lungs: “this is how you make me feel  _every day_.”

and it’s black. 

black and swirling and warm until he wakes up a few minutes later red cheeked and sweating. the whole of the survey corps cadets and mike and hange are circled around him, looking on with awe to see what he would do next. their commander taken down by the captain so impressively swiftly–would he punish him?

erwin laughs loudly, belly heaving with each breath as he sits up and buries his face in his hands. the others scatter away confused and scared. mike lingers. 

“you ok, boss?”

“he is something else, is he not?”

“i’d say so.”

“may i ask you for something?” erwin says, taking mike’s hand to stand up.

“sure. what is it?”

“can you attend to the formations training in my place this evening?”

“of course. may i ask why?”

“i have other matters to attend to, it appears.”

mike looks at him, sniffs in his nose, and nods. “understood.”

later that night levi appears in erwin’s office unannounced, scrolls and papers under his arm. he doesn’t lift his head as he closes the door behind him, keeps his eyes on the floorboards until he flops down onto the sofa and neatly places the things in his arms onto the seat next to him.

“good evening, levi.” erwin says.

“hey.” levi responds, flicks a paper in his hands to make it stand straight as he reads over it.

erwin stands from his spot and makes his way to levi, a teacup and saucer balanced in his hand. he stands in front of him before he’s acknowledged, levi’s dark eyes, sharp and hardened like crystals being filed down ever so slightly at the sight. “tea?”

levi eyes him suspiciously. “i bet it’s shit.”

“hmm. i cannot say i make it so often anymore since you have been around.”

“did you forget how to wipe your ass too?” but levi takes the teacup and saucer, continues to stare into erwin’s eyes as if it’s a contest.

erwin chuckles. “no, i remember how to do that.” erwin is hydrogen, unpredictable and bold, touches the backs of his fingers to levi’s forehead as he pushes away dark strands, ignites a wave of combustion throughout levi's body as he places his lips softly on bare skin. “i hope you enjoy it.”

levi sits, wide eyed, mouth slightly ajar, cheeks rosey. his edges have melted and smoothed, and looks more like a boy than a man, confused by the world he once thought he had figured out. erwin takes a seat at his desk, picks up his quill and begins scribbling on papers.

and it takes a very long time for levi to find his edges again.


	55. meet the family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: meet the family
> 
> "If Levi's friends had survived, would they've come to like Erwin?"

“we never see you anymore, big bro.” isabel blurts out. she’s sitting on the ramparts of the roof saddle style, leg swinging freely in open air.

“i have more responsibilities now.”

“sure.” furlan snorts, sitting to isabel’s side on the floor of the roof, a knife’s blade polishing between his fingers.

“fuck you, furlan.” levi spits, kicks up gravel that sprays into his lap.

“you’re always around the  _commander_.” isabel chimes, sing songs it like a taunt, and it flairs levi to anger.

“like a dog.” furlan adds.

“like a little angry dog.” isabel giggles. levi squints his eyes, smacks furlan generously upside the head, and points a finger directly at isabel’s nose. furlan groans and rubs his head, and the two of them whimper. turning heel, he stomps away toward the door. “aw! come on, levi! we’re just messin’ with ya!”

“let ‘im go, bel. he’s got some shoes to polish.”

levi stops mid-step, twitches his head to the side and looks over his shoulder. “if it wasn’t for erwin, none of us would be alive right now.”

“you say that…”

levi turns, shoulders up to his ears. isabel and furlan are his family, the only two people in the whole world that can see and understand him… though a third is quickly coming to bloom. “you know damn well it’s true. stop being an asshole about it.”

“it’s because we avoided the rain storm–”

“it’s because we had  _him_.” levi nearly shouts, but his voice is so smooth it strikes like a slick venom. “get your fuckin’ head outta your ass and realize that.”

“he tricked us.”

“not before we did first.”

“as if he ever was to begin with…”

the same fight as always. the strain between furlan and levi could only be distinguished as jealousy, and levi doesn’t care to understand why. they are his to protect and care for, and the best way he can do that is to follow erwin. what furlan’s deal is doesn’t fucking matter to him, as long as he’s still breathing to even have a problem at all. “he saved us then too.”

“he doesn’t give a shit about  _us_. he gives a shit about  _you_.” furlan says softly.

levi’s eyes strain wide. furlan had never brought this argument up. a chill runs up his spine and he swallows the thickness in his throat. “bullshit.”

“levi, don’t act like you aren’t special. he wants your strength, and he just deals with the fact that we come with the package. he wrote us a pass because he wanted to keep  _you_.”

“like a dog.” isabel says softly, the joy in her face gone and shattered. she brings her knees up to her chest and presses the side of her cheek to it as she looks forlornly across the roof. 

“what the fuck is wrong with you two?”

“what the fuck is wrong with  _you_ , levi?” furlan stands up, brushes his uniform pants off and leans a hand on the stone rampart. “we never used to need this. we were supposed to leave here and  _live_. we’re still caged up here.”

levi stares off across the roof. from up here on the headquarters roof, he can see the purple band of the wall along the horizon. “we’ll always be caged.”

“guys…” isabel says softly.

“we made it, levi. fuck the scouts, the police, the fucking garrison. we can survive like we always did.”

“why?”

“what the fuck do you mean  _why_?”

levi steps back toward furlan, finds it hard to see eye to eye with him anymore. his gaze is used to casting higher now. “why keep living like that when there’s titans out there. you saw ‘em. one of them almost fucking  _ate_  you, you  _moron_.” he steps heavily once more toward him, eyebrows drawn down. “if erwin wasn’t there to save your fuckin’ ass, you’d be  _dead_.”

“guys,  _stop_.” isabel claws at her knee.

“ _good_. i’d rather be dead than have some gold licker saving my–”

levi lunges forward and grabs furlan by the shirt front, and in one motion brings him swiftly to the ground. he holds him down with a firm fist pressed against his chest, drives it deeper to pin him to the rooftop. his eyes are alit with anger, and even though he’s smaller, he asserts the dominance of a wolf to a cub. “don’t you  _ever_ say that shit again, furlan.”

isabel jumps down and grabs at levi’s arm. “bro! stop!”

“we were given these lives to  _survive_  and we’ll do  _whatever_  it takes to keep them.” he lifts furlan by the shirt front and slams him back down into the ground. “you fuckin’  _hear_  me?”

“ _fuck you!”_

levi breathes heavily through his nose, closes his eyes, discards furlan from his hand and stands up. he keeps his eyes on furlan, looks up at isabel but doesn’t hold onto the gaze. he shakes his head and shuffles toward the door again. “see you at dinner.”

“unless you’re gonna eat with the commander again.” furlan spits.

“furlan…” isabel says quietly it almost gets lost in the wind.

levi ignores him, and he kicks his food across his plate without a word inside of erwin’s office that night.


	56. mirrored delusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: mirrored delusion
> 
> "Prompt: Erwin has dementia."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A different view of "Delusions". I think I like Erwin's POV a bit better.

deja vu stops being a sensation when it’s a constant. his coworker henry looks a lot like the long haired woman he always hears shouting and raving in his dreams. sometimes the things he does with his best friend mitch feel eerily familiar when midnight rolls around and they’re three shots deep. and when he meets leland, he struggles to get to sleep that night, feels deju vu on his fingertips, like the soft sensation of combing through an undercut.

he wakes the next morning and dumps his girlfriend. he doesn’t come to the realization of what he had done until later that evening. he sucks in air at the bar, looks around alerted as if he had just woken from a sleep. the drink in his hand has sweated out, his hand damp but the ice has gone. with his other hand, he places his forehead in it and draws out his breath. he feels like death. and confusion and pain and death. mostly death. he feels like  _death,_ as if he’s been there before and has smelt the decay, when all eric knew was the comfortable middle class life. suburban living with loving parents and a stable job.

what does  _he_  know about death?

leland finds himself in more of their group gatherings–he’s a friend of henry’s that’s moved back into the area. leland reminds eric of death and he’s not sure why. almost asks what his deal is–as if it’s his fault for existing to give him this unwanted anxiety. but he gravitates toward him. feels like there’s something  _about_  him, that maybe if he gets close enough, he can find the answers. when he smiles it feels like a gift, like a rarity, even though he does it so often. he’s sharp tongued and a little aggressive, but he’s one of the best friends eric’s ever had.

eric wakes up, eyes wide enough that they burn, sweat dripping from his brow and into his ears. he gasps loud, and it startles the man next to him. “eric? yo, eric, what’s wrong?”

eric shoots his eyes over to him, scrambles out of the bed sheets, but he can’t break free from the tangle and plummets out of bed to hit the floor. he yelps, rubs his rump as he tries to gather himself from up and under the blankets. he finds then that he’s naked, and so is the man, and he’s not in any of the picture frames that decorate across the walls.

“jesus, dude, what the fuck.” the man jumps out of bed, and eric covers his eyes and shakes his head. “eric, what happened?”

his name is eric… yes, his name is eric jones. he’s 30 years old. a history professor at the state university. his mother, grace, and his father, vincent, live thirty minutes away in a house too big and too far north for such an old couple.

this is leland. and they’re dating.

“i… i’m sorry.”

“was this another…”

eric looks up at him and isn’t  _really_  certain what leland is referring to, but he nods anyway.

“i’ll get you some water, ok? wait here, babe.” he leaves the room, and eric watches, squints his eyes as he remembers that sway of hips from somewhere. the way his heel rolls to the ball of his foot as he walks, fluid and graceful. eric holds his breath and bites his lip.

last night had been a good time.

“erwin!”

eric snaps his head around, and he’s in a crowd of people. his arms are around a small man in front of him, and there appears to be a parade going on. floats decorated in red, white, and blue. the local high school band playing only slightly off key due to the arts funding being cut. and somebody says it again:

“erwin!”

eric heaves a breath, steps back from the man in front of him, looks at his hand, a gold band encircling his left ring finger. he looks around, stumbles into a couple and their children, before smacking into the brick siding of one of the businesses that line downtown.

“eric!” the man pushes through the crowd and grabs his hand, pulls him down, and the gray of his eyes reminds him… reminds him of…

“levi?”

“who?”

“levi. oh goddesses, levi, i have missed you.” eric scoops the man into his arms, holds him tight against him and his chest swells with a sorrow that feels like death. 

“eric…”

eric sobs once into his shoulder, feels a fire in his left side that burns around his ring finger, and the death feels like joy–joy to be back here with him. “i am sorry i died.”

leland goes limp, his hands just barely holding onto eric as he brings them gently to the ground. “i’m glad you’re alive.”

and he’s scribbling on paper, memories he doesn’t remember but that still flow from his pen. names and science and weapons that don’t make sense. leland nods at pictures of giant naked men, and eric can nearly hear the joke falling from his lips, but he keeps them inside. smiles less now. but that makes it more familiar somehow. like his thin lined lips belong within his scribbles somewhere to be logged and documented. so much paperwork. he remembers the paperwork.

leland kisses eric’s forehead before he leaves for work, their little blonde daughter cradled at his hip.

“i love you.” leland says.

“love you, papa!” kirsten says. she grabs him by the cheeks and kisses him full on his lips.

he smiles at them. at this family. he loves them more than anything–that much he knows is true. he forgets that leland’s name isn’t ‘levi’, and that their daughter isn’t the queen (though she could be miss america if she wanted to be). 

he touches a hand to leland’s cheek, his ring pressing against cheekbone. he has no idea what he did to deserve this man in this life. patient and understanding and caring. he doesn’t understand how he allowed eric to suck away the sweet smiles from his face. he’s sure they’ve had some good days here. they must have had some.

erwin smith doesn’t belong here, not in this heaven. he tries to tell himself that eric jones will do, but sometimes leland still reminds him of death, sometimes he smells like the sky and blood and sweet flowers mixed with lemons. but they can live together now even if leland doesn’t remember–even if he never remembers–and erwin will do whatever he can to do to sleep and allow them this…. this happiness in a different time.


	57. emptiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: emptiness
> 
> "The image of Levi returning to Erwin's empty bed. The song 'When You're Gone' by Avril Lavigne keeps playing over the scene in my mind."

erwin was a person. now he’s things.

he’s the chair with red velvet cushions and ornate wood carvings, the varnish worn around the feet and arms from years of use. he’s the shirt that’s folded neatly on his dresser, surrounded by a floor covered in books and scrolls and old paperwork. he’s the bed, stiff mattress and rough blankets, too cold to lay in now, too hard to sleep in.

he’s the shadows in these things. the depression in the plush of the desk chair, the expanse in the left arm of his dress shirt, the left hand side of the bed, made tidy and neat.

levi avoids these things.

he avoids a lot of things.

levi demands that nobody touches his things. he’ll take care of them. hange says they need an office to work in. demands it when weeks pass on. levi makes excuses, spouts insults, finds himself on rooftops after he tries to gather the courage to turn doorknobs to his office, to his bedroom.

he’s not supposed to use the mobility gear in civilian space without authorization, but levi is an unhinged door swaying in the wind, and nobody in their right mind would try to stop him. he clambers over roof tops, running and running, trying to make jumps without shooting grapples, just like he did in the underground. it brings him back to a time before  _him_. but the air is fresher here, not by much, but the sun cooks the citrus tones out of his clothing, the muskiness of his sweat, and he pauses at the edge of town on an old roof, balls of his feet curling around the edge. he looks around, realizes now his attempt to catch his breath. he unbuttons the top few buttons of his shirt, feels sick by the smell of himself.

fingers pressed on him, slicking sweat away from his collar bone. the fragrance like a cologne dabbed behind his ear. he swallows. he bends over, hands on his knees. he coughs. he heaves.

levi is a thing he can’t avoid. he’s one of the things that reminds him of  _him_.

he has a duty. a commitment. he won’t give up fighting, but he sees him everywhere and in everything and when all he wants is to hear his voice again, to feel his touch on his chin, he struggles. and when even the  _air_  reminds him of fluttering cloaks sailing above a white horse, he struggles.

“levi.” hange says, softly. “please be ready to depart in two hours for the memorial.”

“do i have to go?” he says, not so much unlike a child.

“yes. they are honoring the deceased and the survivors. it’s your duty.”

“not interested.”

“levi.” they say it like  _he_  did. strong. firm. but it sounds like a command coming from hange, not a conversation. it always feels like that.

“i don’t fuckin’ see the point. what’s gonna happen to us now anyway?”

“we will be talking with some of the officials to figure out where our next steps lie.”

“do it yourself.”

“levi…” hange turns to him. their one eye has gotten darker since shinganshina. it’s near black, shines behind the lens of their glasses, the eyepatch strap above their right eye blistering a pink line across their forehead. “i need you.”

levi stares at them, searches hange’s face. he fights everything to not flee the room at that moment, hears  _him_  through their words, and fuck if he isn’t  _everywhere_. “get another guy.”

“honor him.” hange says quietly.

“i will when i send the beast titan’s head rolling.” levi spits. he turns to head toward the door.

“be there to show them what we’ve lost.” hange takes a seat in  _his_  seat, and it makes levi’s shoulder roll. “what  _you_  lost.”

levi tuts. “whatever.”

“he would have done the same for you.”

levi’s eyes blow wide, and he swivels his head back toward hange. he latches eyes with that one eye that’s lost its humanity, and his breathing hitches. he’s sitting in the chair with hange, and like an old scent the memory seeps through him, wafted on the tones of steeped tea leaves. they had talked about in brief conversations, entertained the fantasies as if they were pleasant dreams. a cruel reality that seemed to ease the pain of possibility if talked about outright, right here in this office as if it were casual pleasantries about the weather.

neither of them wanted fanfare, but realized it would be unavoidable. levi held his promise of how he would lay him to rest if need be. they had both promised they’d attend their memorials, no matter how big they would be.

levi looks down at the desk and sighs. “i’ll be ready.” he leaves the room, shakes so hard that his legs buckle at the knees and he nearly careens into the wall. he makes it to his quarters, shuts the door behind him and presses his back to it. he looks around and realizes that he ended up in  _his_  room and he can’t. he doesn’t know when or how it became muscle memory–where his and  _his_  turned into  _theirs._

he struggles. he wants to avoid it. and he doesn’t know how he will  _ever_  be able to grow accustom to a life when erwin is gone.


	58. unexpected

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: unexpected
> 
> (an apology to the previous anon)

levi wonders all too often how erwin is just so damn  _good_  at everything. 

he excuses it as privilege at first. hears through conversations at the mess hall and around the training grounds that erwin is a teacher’s son. levi assumes nobility, rolls his eyes at the perfectly maintained bowl of a haircut, tries to ignore the enchanting smell of his cologne. he’s a well put together man, and it unsettles levi to disgust. of course the capital would keep his pockets deep and full–he bets that the reason why they lose so many men is because of poor equipment funding from a greedy commander.

but levi had been around when shadis was in command. he knows these lies he tells himself aren’t true. erwin is a good commander. levi would bet he is the best.

erwin composes himself as if he were a painting of a nobleman. he takes proper care of his hygiene and appearance, flawlessly and consistently. levi admires his perfectly trimmed nails, his groomed eyebrows, the arbor smell of his pomade. he looks the same from day to day, and levi’s curiosity gets him. he lingers outside of erwin’s quarters before the sun is up, sees the candle light under his door and the strained dripping of water from a wash rag into a basin.

he sleeps so little, just like levi, and he starts to overstay his welcome in an attempt to see how much he can learn. to his irritation, erwin doesn’t seem to mind.

“what are you doing? it’s one in the morning. that doesn’t look like paperwork.” levi lulls his head to the side, his arms propped on the back of the couch inside of erwin’s office. he removed his jacket hours ago, unfastened the belt across his chest, and untied his cravat, but it did nothing to sedate his clothing from sticking to his skin like wax paper. the summer heat managed to penetrate even these old stone walls in the middle of july.

“writing.” erwin says. he doesn’t look up, but there’s a wistful smile on his face.

“love letters?” levi teases.

“yes.” erwin says bluntly.

levi double takes, rests his elbows onto his thighs. “no way.”

erwin looks up at him. his hair is still perfectly glued to place, his eyes still bright despite the lack of sleep, and the heat doesn’t seem to be bothering him at all. he’s beautiful, and it makes levi pout and turn his gaze. “is that so unbelievable?”

“for you? absolutely.” levi doesn’t remember when he started chewing the inside of his lip. “who could love somebody like you?”

erwin hums. “i suppose you’re right. they are not for me, however.”

levi wants to say he was joking. there is something about erwin’s self-defeatist attitude that flares sympathy in him, and he has yet to figure out why. “do you write them on little cards that you carry with your baked goods? go around town like a baker’s daughter fundraising for the corps?” levi scoffs, but he is legitimately amused by the idea of erwin selling pastries on the streets. it’s… adorable. it crashes through this persona of perfection that irritates levi so damn much.

erwin is good at laughing, loud and guttural, and it always feels genuine. levi shifts as the sound fills the room. “ah, levi. that is quite an interesting idea. i could certainly see it being beneficial.”

“you’re a fucking idiot.” levi lies.

“would you like to read one?” erwin says, and the laughter has left his voice but lingers in the crows feet around his eyes.

“nope.” levi says immediately.

“i assumed as much.” erwin says, returning his focus to his papers.

levi watches him. a teacher’s son, driven mad by titans some said, a man that enjoys spending tax money on ripping his men apart in the maws of monsters. levi always knew there was something off about this erwin smith.

it is that he is never at all what he appears to be.

“i’m fuckin’ with you. lemme read one.” levi holds his hand out, but still doesn’t make eye contact. erwin leans over, long limbs able to reach levi, and it flusters levi. he snaps the piece of parchment to attention in his hand and begins to read. erwin’s handwriting is beautiful, steady, perfectly maintained. just like him. he rolls his eyes and starts to digest the words.

they’re… beautiful. the vocabulary above anything he heard in the underground, but not anything he needed a dictionary for. well paced and metered, like a poem, but structured like a battle report. it’s only a few lines long, but it says it all. it says everything.

levi wonders if it’s about  _him._

“it is for you.” erwin says, and if levi could ever imagine erwin being shy, it is exactly how he would have sounded.

“what?” levi quips, sputters it almost. his eyes snap to erwin’s.

“writing poetry helps me.” he does not say anything else. levi understands.

“it’s…” levi tries to catch his breath. emotions swirling in him like a whirlwind, kicking up leaves and dust that render it difficult for him to breathe. “thanks.” he finally says, resting the piece of paper on his lap.

“i believe i will call it a night. would you like to join me?”

“join you?”

erwin smiles gently at him. this man of secrets hidden under lies… no, not lies, but armor. a deeply complicated man, framed by the image of another, molded in a kiln with rumors and hushes that turn him into a legend. a villain. a demon.

a  _man_.

levi nods once, folds the piece of paper and puts it into his jacket pocket. he stands and holds the collar of it between his fingers and waits for erwin to pack up his belongings. he rounds the desk and stands before levi, a piece of his hair falling loose across his forehead.


	59. birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it was my birthday and i wanted fluff
> 
> after the rule was an add on because a lovely anon sent me: "I love your morning birthday prompt. AAAAAHHHHHHH"

erwin doesn’t get out of bed in time to go to work. levi kicks him with the heels of his feet until half of his body is hanging off the side of the bed. he groans, head hanging, blood rushing to his head and turning his forehead pink. “stop.” the sleep in his voice cracks the end of the command and turns it into a squeak.

“you missed your alarm.”

“mmmgghh.”

“five times.” levi makes one more well placed kick into erwin’s side, and he slides off the side, arms flailing and gripping onto the sheets of the bed. 

eyes wide, erwin looks back at levi, the edge of his left shoulder, butt, and leg being the only remaining parts of his body on the mattress. “levi!” levi kicks him again. erwin loses his grip and crashes to the floor with a  _bang_ **.** “fuck!”

levi crawls over the bed, the frame creaking under his lithe weight as he peers over the edge. “just because it’s your birthday doesn’t mean you get to play hooky.”

erwin rubs the back of his head, having hit it against the side table on his way down. “christ, levi. what the fuck?”

levi slips off the bed, melts along the edges like wax, before finally settling on top of erwin’s stomach. he places a gentle hand on his cheek, leans over and places a kiss on top of his head, and offers a thin smile. erwin relaxes under him. “happy birthday, old man.”

“so old.” erwin mutters, pressing his cheek into levi’s hand.

“you’re thirty. get over yourself.”

“what have i done with my life?”

levi sits back, picks up erwin’s left hand and brings it to his mouth. he kisses the pad of each of his fingers before nipping at the tip of his pinky. “a lot.”

erwin squirms, his stare vacant and unfocused into levi’s chest. “i should have a house by now. i should be making more money… i should have some damn kids…”

“a white picket fence and a doggie too.”

“yes.”

“i was fuckin’ around.” levi kisses his forehead, down his cheek and breathes into his ear, “you’re doing just fine.” levi sits back, turns erwin’s hand within his, kisses the tendon of his wrist, licks up it to his palm, and kisses the thick scar across his hand. “you don’t look a day over forty.”

erwin laughs, jostling levi enough that he has to brace himself with both hands on his chest. “how did i get so lucky to have such a loving boyfriend like you?”

“if this is luck, you shouldn’t try gambling.” levi muses.

“we should go to the casino today.”

“you’re already gambling with your job by skipping.”

erwin grins. “i asked for today off months ago.”

levi slaps his hand across his chest and tries to wiggle off. “you asshole.”

“i love you too.” he thrusts his hips up, levi groaning and catching his balance on the edge of the side table. the bare muscles in his chest and stomach flex, and a sound escapes erwin’s nose that they both know all too well.

“don’t you want breakfast first?”

erwin runs his hands up levi’s thighs and rests his thumbs in the divot of his hip bone. “can’t i have  _you_  for breakfast?”

levi snorts, slides his ass down erwin’s body so that it settles against his stiffening cock, restrained helplessly by smooth boxer briefs. “you sure you can still get it up?”

erwin scoops levi up in his arms, rotates them on the floor so he has the smaller man pinned below him. he ruts his hips sharply into levi’s and growls. “you are going to wish i couldn’t.”

levi grins darkly and wraps his arms around erwin’s neck, smiles into his lips as he says so quietly against them: “i love you.”

 

* * *

 

levi’s head is pressed against the night stand table, bumping in time with each hammering thrust from erwin. he tries to hold onto anything but erwin has him where he wants him, has him fully submitted to the girth of his cock that drills deeper and deeper.

he tries to breathe but it’s too hard. maybe erwin had been right–that he wishes this old fuck couldn’t get that monsterly huge dick up to attention for him. but he’d been with other men before, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like being torn to shreds by this tree of a man.

because with all of the heated slapping and growling and the crescendos of cries that rip from their throats as if they were pleading for their very fucking lives, erwin is a gentle fuck. a gentle lover. even the first time they had sex it was like making love–levi had never felt so completely attended to, caressed and cared for like he was almost infirmed. but it didn’t bother him–that was the oddest part of it all. being held in his big, thick arms was like being home. for awhile that spooked him. it took several more attempts before he finally fell asleep in them–savaged but satisfied and feeling just a little bit loved.

erwin reaches around and strokes him heatedly. apparently breakfast was to go, and they weren’t going to spend time cooking. levi presses his forehead to the wood floor, drool trickling from his bottom lip and pooling under his chin.  he pants out long moans, drowned out by the loud groans coming from behind him. erwin’s so loud, always so fucking loud, but he can feel it reverberate in erwin’s cock, deep in his ass as it sinks in and out in long excruciating drags and erwin’s hand… so large and gently, stroking him in time and bringing black stars to the edges of his vision. it doesn’t take long, fuck, it never takes long. levi’s spine tightens, his elbows give out, his cheek resting against the floorboards and panting open mouthed like a dying fish. the orgasm shakes his body, threatens to take his knees away too, but erwin holds him up as he thrusts one, two, three more times until he explodes unprotected inside of levi.

erwin folds over him, his arms planting on either side of levi’s shoulders. they both breathe heavily, shuddering with each hesitating moan before erwin finds enough composure to lean down and place a kiss between levi’s shoulder blades. he mutters it, repeats it, says it like a chorus to a song that he always has stuck in his head. “i love you. i love you.  _i love you_.”

sometimes levi forgets what to say, can’t remember sometimes in these moments, but he does this time. “i love you too.”

erwin kisses his spine again, pulls out of him and drags him carefully into his arms against the night stand. they breathe heavily for several minutes until levi almost dozes off. “i could go for some pancakes.”

levi smiles into erwin’s chest, eyes fluttering open lazily. “i’ll make the heart shaped ones you like.”

“you spoil me.”

“i know…”


	60. delusional ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for eruriweek. prompt: reincarnation

some days are harder than others when he remembers.

levi is understanding. patient. but even he wears thin at times. and levi knows that when the office door is closed and the light leaks from under it, that erwin needs time to be alone.

the whiskey is strong. tastes like medicine and it provides temporary relief like one. he did this back then too, when death counts had the time to catch up to him in the minutes before dawn, where the dead freely walked in that witching hour–haunting him.

he remembers a name. it’s the first time he remembers it. mike. and not enough alcohol and sedate the guilt, even though he tries. back then, he found time to mourn mike when he laid in his sick bed with a bandage packed tightly around a missing arm. any tears he shed were not for himself. an arm would not grant him passage into heaven, it would not bring back those he loved from the dead. 

he missed them.

he misses them.

he tries not to talk about them. but he wants levi to remember. he wonders if he talks about them enough that there will be a spark of recognition in his beautiful gray eyes. instead, levi listens as if erwin were talking about imaginary friends. like a man playing with dolls. he compliments his imagination, tells him he should write. he might have the next best seller on his hands.

erwin’s not crazy. he’s not crazy. he tells himself this over and over until the bottle is gone and he’s wrapped around the bathroom toilet with his head pressed firmly against the cold porcelain. he’s not crazy.  _he’s not crazy._

_“_ eric.” levi’s voice is quiet. he sits down with his legs crossed and runs a cool finger against erwin’s sweating brow. “you need to stop doing this.”

“i’m not crazy.” erwin mutters, and the words outloud make his stomach tighten in pain. “levi, i’m not crazy.”

levi doesn’t correct him. his name isn’t levi in this life, but he knows erwin is having an episode. the doctors have taught him how to deal with these situations. “you aren’t.” he says softly, petting erwin’s face until his breathing evens out.

“mike. levi. mike. he was our comrade. he was my best friend…” erwin screws his eyes shut and maybe it’s the alcohol that shoots the pain through his brain or it’s the memory. “i never thought… i let myself get too close.”

“you’re human.”

“it hurt so bad, levi. it hurts.” erwin tries to look at levi but the tears are so thick they blur everything and he rests his head back down. “i killed so many.”

“you didn’t kill anybody.”

“i killed them all. oh my god…” and he remembers what it was like to die, and in this life, where he doesn’t command armies, he lets himself sob out on the floor of his suburban home.

“eric…” levi says softly.

“erwin!” erwin shouts, and he’s trying to lift himself off the ground before levi offers assistance. “i want to hear you say it. please.  _please_.”

levi looks at him, blinks slowly. he’s supposed to keep erwin calm, not play too deep into the delusion so he can’t claw back out. but he loves him. he doesn’t know the strings of fate that have tied them so close together across lives, but he loves him. “ok, erwin.”

there’s a silence. erwin’s breath catches and he stares wide eyed at levi. hoping for something. anything. it feels so  _right_  when he says the name, wants him to remember it drawling off his tongue like an accent from a language long since forgotten.

anything.

oh god, please remember  _anything_.

“let’s get you to bed, commander.”


	61. tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for eruriweek. prompt: tea

levi wonders what mike would say having to smell this. all this blood and burning flesh–does it smell different depending on the person? would it be too hard to be in the same room knowing that his best friend was so close to dying this time?

levi is having a hard time.

but mike never returned. sasha reported that he had gone off as bait to save the rest of the squad. mike’s strong, but levi worries–actually worries–that he encountered that giant hairy titan. that he is no longer a veteran but a soldier that perished in the line of duty.

he doesn’t know how he’ll tell erwin when he wakes.

and the smell of blood is rotten and smells like tarnished buckles and cracked leather, and when he drinks his tea the smell mixes with taste and he needs to put his cup down on the windowsill before he retches. he wants to occupy his mind with something else, but even if his ankle wasn’t fucked, he’d be thinking of erwin the whole time. so he steeps too much tea, swallows down the auburn liquid like a fanged monster drunk on blood, and stays half awake barely ever leaving erwin’s side.

he  _needs_  to be there when he wakes.

and another cup and another. fuck, it still smells like blood and tea and buckles, and the taste is rancid and dissatisfying, but levi drinks down the last of his tea before he places it down on the windowsill. it’s six in the evening and this i when they always have tea. he leaves a cup steaming at erwin’s bedside, watches it grow cool, before replacing it again at four in the morning.

he’s still breathing. and when he wakes he’ll smile because levi will be there. with tea. because there’s always time for tea.


	62. pda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for eruriweek. prompt: high school

levi laughs against erwin’s mouth. “this is like when we fucked in the stables. do you remember?”

“which time?” erwin asks, and he adjusts his stance so his legs are braced wider, allowing levi to sit more comfortably on his cock as he leans levi against the wall.

“the time that horse faced kid walked in– _ahhh_!” levi pulls himself up and around erwin’s neck, bounces his ass on erwin and he moans one more time. “oohhh  _god_.”

“quiet, darling.” erwin says, sealing their mouths with a wet and hurried kiss. he does his best to thrust up into levi, presses his weight heavier into him, his hips moving faster as if he doesn’t mean for levi to be quiet at all. in truth, he doesn’t. even if his job depends on it, having found levi in this life is the greatest reward he could ever have.

“erwin!” he cries against his cheek. “ _fuck_! faster!”

“what was that kid’s name?” erwin says, pressing his forehead to the wall of the dark room. his thrusting slows, becomes deep and methodical, and levi’s fingers tug desperately at his hair as he continues working erwin’s cock inside him.

“erwin, i don’t care. i was just…” levi breathes and pauses. “can i…” he tries to bring one arm down to grasp his cock, but he loses grip on erwin and slumps down the wall. “shit!”

erwin catches a hand under his thigh and pins levi completely against the wall, his foot kicking at a half empty bottle of bleach. “it started with a ‘j’…”

“i don’t give a shit about the brat! focus!” levi squirms up, kicking a heel into the small of erwin’s back.

erwin nods, kisses the crook of his neck and pounds heavily into him. they’re both moaning. a broom clatters to the floor, the mop bucket shakes and splashes dirty water across the floor. levi finds purchase on the cleaning chemical shelf, snakes his arm around the metal beam, and one arm around erwin’s neck. the thrill, the danger, the love–it’s all here, as if it had never left. levi’s entire body shivers as he reaches climax. “like that… yes… yes!”

levi’s eyes snap to the door. fluorescent light slices through the closet, and a long faced boy with scruffy hair looks at them wide eyed.

“jean!” levi cries.

erwin coughs, buckles against the wall, pins his body completely against levi, splatting him to the wall like a squashed bug. “ _fuck_.” erwin hisses. “that was his name…”

“what the fuck!”

“u-u-u-uh… i… i didn’t… think it would be… unlocked.” he says.

“get out!” levi tries to squirm away from erwin, but erwin doesn’t want to move at the risk of showing his face. “get the fuck out brat!”

“s-sir. i’m sorry, sir!” jean stammers, closing the door behind him. levi can hear laughter through the closed door. it sounds familiar, and he remembers matching it to green eyes on a giant man.

levi growls out loud. “asshole kid blue ballin’ me again.” he struggles against erwin, who finally gently places him down onto his feet. they both tuck themselves into their clothes, zipper and button up where appropriate, and smooth out their hair. “i wonder where he’ll end up in the next life.”

“maybe we should stop doing things in public?” erwin suggests, but it doesn’t hold weight. not at all.

levi adjust his name badge onto his blue janitor scrub, and tries to banish the smile that curls his lips. “you know that’s impossible.”

“sadly so.”

levi presses his body close to professor smith, looks him up and down, runs a knuckle against his chest. “i’ll catch you for dinner tonight?”

“we live in the same house.” erwin notes.

“just accept the invite, mr. smith.”

erwin kisses him hotly, remembers all the strange and exhilarating places he’s touched this man that he has devoted lifetimes to. he remembers every second of his days, knows that he loves him more than an infinite amount of lives can contain. “i’ll be there. always.”


	63. daddy clothes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for dayoldcupcake. prompt: daddy clothes

mr. smith never thought it’d happen to him.

he’d been a history teacher at trost high for five years, was awarded best teacher in the tri-city area, and volunteered his time more than any other teacher in the school. he was well liked by colleagues, students, and parents. but none of that mattered. old man zackley had seniority on him–was learned in global history more so than his younger counterpart. according to the budgeting committee, the man closer to retirement had enough energy to take on ten extra students per class. surely it would be enough to curb their budget enough for some extra pretty flower beds in front of the state-of-the-art football field.

yeah, surely that would help the budget.

it annoys levi by how restless erwin is. the damn oaf can’t calm his mind in front of a television for more than ten minutes before fidgeting with something–home budgets, travel plans, sudoku puzzles. levi puts his foot down when he tries to help around the house.

“i have a system.” levi says, arms once again piled with cleaning supplies that have been put away in the wrong place. “you’re fucking up the system.”

“i can’t help it.” erwin follows levi, arms crossed against his chest. his bushy eyebrows are even meticulously brushed due to boredom.

“get a job. any job. just get outta my hair.” levi barks, taking one article at a time and placing it neatly on his cleaning supply shelf.

“i  _have_  been trying.”

“try harder.”

there’s a few schools in their area, but none seem to be in need of american history teacher. he sends his resume to each one but never once gets a callback. he puts out an ad for after school tutoring–ends up teaching the brilliant arlert boy some ap level concepts about the reconstruction amendments. but after a few weeks, even armin comments on erwin’s habits. 

“d-do i really need to know all of this for the test, mr. smith?” armin asks, politely timid. “there seems to be… a lot of material i need to memorize here.”

erwin blinks, looks at the textbook, and there’s a heat that spreads across his neck that reaches up to his ears. he shakes his head. erwin had had armin as a student the year prior, and knew what the boy was capable of absorbing. but thirty sticky tabs in the textbook within a span of five pages maybe  _was_  a bit over the top. “no…” erwin trails, flips the book open to try to determine what information he  _would_  need to know for the test, but at that moment he just… wasn’t sure. what if they completely changed the curriculum when he left?

“you’re right.” erwin says to levi that night. levi’s folding his work uniform at the counter in their laundry room.

“of course i am.” levi says, placing the janitor scrub into a basket before starting on folding another. he breathes in through his nose. “… about what?”

erwin leans on the door frame. “about getting a job. i’m going to try harder.”

“if it means going to a different district, i don’t want to move…”

“no no, me neither.” erwin says. “i think i need to… look elsewhere.” erwin says, his head hanging low. “at least until there’s something open around here.”

“like what?”

levi gets his answer two weeks later. he pulls into the parking lot of the outlet stores and idles in his car for a few minutes. he breathes in before turning off the car and walking up to the door. he considers his reflection in the big window lining the store front, his head perched above the mannequin’s attire of pastel pink polos and sky blue shorts. he snorts.

he looks around and feels wildly out of place with his work uniform still on. the summer season is falling into autumn, but there’s a decent amount of upper class families wandering between stores, still tanned from their times spent out on boats and among beach sand. levi swallows the lump in his throat–the one that forms when he remembers the bricks of ramen he had to eat for dinner and the thrift store clothes he had to wear–and pulls open the door to ‘whalie whales’.

it smells. like musky cologne and flowery perfume mixed with the stench of new clothing made by hands that barely make enough to eat. and he squints at how bright all of the pastel clothing glows under the fluorescent lighting, sneers darkly as he scans the entire store from left to right. there’s country music playing on the speakers, which feels out of place in a store built on nautical themes, and the only other pair of customers in the store are idly bobbing their heads to the beat as they hold up various button up shirts to themselves. they utter the important questions of whether salmon is better than rose, before they just decide on the periwinkle.

“hello, sir. how may i help you?”

levi sucks in air, his eyes swirling to that all too familiar height. “hey.”

erwin smiles back at him. erwin’s always been one to dress to match his smile. all dress shirts in various patterns and colors, along with polo shirts that fit snugly against his biceps. but right now, he looks positively preppy–like a cardigan belonged around his shoulders, a glass of champagne in his hand, and the salty wind of the ocean blowing through his hair.

“i am afraid i can’t do anything with that.” erwin chuckles.

levi struggles with words, stumbles over his own tongue, and he knows–he fucking  _knows_ –he’s blushing. “i was, uh, looking for a tall… handsome… blonde?”

“slick.” erwin comments, placing his fists on his hips. his khakis are a dark tan, ironed to a fold down the center of the legs, and they’re so tight levi gets distracted looking for which way he packs (even though he knows it’s to the left). “i am sorry to disappoint, but i am already happily taken.”

levi swallows. follows his pants up to his leather belt, to the salmon polo shirt tucked into them, and eventually rest on the little navy whale embroidered on his left breast pocket. “she must be lucky.”

“she?”

levi grins, drops his eyes and puts his hands into his pockets. the unintended role play is flustering him, and he shifts his clothing to keep his dick close to his body. clearing his throat, he looks over at a mannequin display of a typical way-god-intended nuclear family and scoffs. “how’s the job?”

“it’s keeping me occupied.” he lets a hand rest at his side as he makes his way behind the counter that floats in the middle of the store. “i don’t think it’s what i want to do when i grow up, though.”

“you’ll get there, son.”

“oh, will i, daddy?”

levi looks at him wide eyed.

erwin smile grows larger.

levi turns and rests his ass against the counter and folds his arms across his chest. he shifts his weight, the loose fabric of his uniform being both a blessing and a curse at the moment. “i wanted to make sure you weren’t fucking anything up.”

“am i doing all right?”

“maybe.”

erwin leans on the counter, and levi can feel his breath on his neck. “can you take me out to dinner, daddy?”

levi’s eyebrows crease. he sways off the counter and rushes toward the door. he swivels his head and glares back at erwin. “i’ll see you went you get out.”

that night, erwin sucks levi down, swallowing every milky strand of cum down his throat until levi is breathily telling him what a good boy he is. this pompous salmon colored looking fuck–taking every ounce of pleasure from him until it practically drives him to seeing stars. this beautiful, intelligent, perfect man wrapping his arms around him until they fall fast into sleep, empty and feeling nothing but content with that.

he visits again in his janitor garb, and he feels a sense of superiority now. he sticks out like a sore thumb, but a thumb that has this blonde god pressed firmly under it. levi leans forward on the counter and runs his thumb along his bottom lip as he speaks. “you ever put those mannequins in compromising positions?”

erwin looks up from ticketing clearance prices on rotating product. “maybe on my last day.”

levi huffs a laugh. “hear anything back yet?”

erwin’s expression changes briefly before he smooths it to stoicism. “no, not yet.”

levi runs a finger along erwin’s arm, and the goosebumps appear immediately. “call me when it does.”

erwin looks up at levi, and the smile is quaint and genuine. “who else would i tell?”

that night, levi rides erwin slowly until erwin can’t handle it anymore–until he’s slamming wildly up to meet him. levi comes across his white polo, shoots past erwin’s cheek and lands on a navy pillow of their couch. he slumps down into him, feels the familiar warmth of arms around him that calm his breathing to the familiar sweet rolls of tides. they whisper words about love that get washed away into sleep, and levi wakes with dry lips pressed against erwin’s neck.

“i like this.” levi says.

“what’s that?” erwin is using a hook to take down shirts displayed up high. his back muscles show through the button up shirt he’s wearing–navy with hot pink polka dots. his pants crease up into the folds of where his ass meets his thighs, and it positively makes levi’s mouth water.

“you needing help with things up high. it’s hot.”

“don’t you have better things to do than to harass me?” erwin grins.

levi loops his fingers in his belt straps, pulls down his uniform scrub as he leans forward into his boyfriend. “my schedule is consistent unlike yours… and i’m bored.”

“is that all i am to you?”

“what? a piece of meat?” levi shrugs. “have you seen your ass right now?”

erwin rests his heels back onto the floor and looks over at the dressing room. “would i be impressed?”

“don’t be a narcissist.”

“but i’m curious.”

that night, levi has erwin against the wall in their bedroom, fingers slick with lube and erwin’s knees knocking into the drywall as three small fingers pump into him. erwin breathes out, watching over his shoulder at the full length mirror in their room. levi had been right–his ass does look good–with or without clothes.

levi finger fucks his prostate until he comes against the sky blue walls of the room–like white clouds out on the open ocean. levi tells him what a good boy he is, and erwin’s cheeks remain flushed as he jerks levi off over the side of their bed, licking the cum off his fingers–one finger at a time–when it’s all over.

levi discovers he has a problem when he erases the first message on the answering machine.

he feels guilty, like an asshole, but the interview is for a school that’s too far away, too below his skills, and he doesn’t even want erwin to entertain the idea.

he lingers around the aisles, checks the price tags on every piece of clothing and shakes his head. “i can’t fuckin’ believe this.”

“what’s that?” erwin asks. they’re the only ones in the store. fall as slowed down the beach crowd considerably.

“sixty fucking dollars for a t-shirt.” 

“it’s good quality.”

“is it, though?”

erwin shrugs. “it’s what i tell people.”

levi smirks. “anything to get a sale.”

“we’re in the middle of a recession. i have to pull out all the stops, love.”

there’s another message. this one is for a catholic school. erwin is bisexual and agnostic. levi deletes the message.

“how do you think i’d look in this?” levi holds a white dress shirt up to him. it has pale blue stripes on it and the trademark whale on the breast. 

“adorable.”

levi clicks his tongue and puts it down. “fuck you.”

“be the daddy your soul is telling you to be.” erwin presses a fist to his chest. “dedicate your heart to it.”

levi snorts. “what’s your employee discount again?”

“thirty percent.”

“fuck me, it’s still expensive even with that.”

erwin smiles, drags a finger along his chin. “i’ll buy it for you.”

“oh?”

“if it pleases you.”

erwin’s on his knees that night, the dress shirt draped around his head as he worships levi’s balls in his mouth. he licks up the seam, up his shaft, and deep throats his cock until levi stumbles back into the wall, slides down to the floor, and is taken quickly and feverishly on the rug. levi throws his head back, growls out a scream when he orgasms. he pets erwin’s hair when they’re both finished and they take to snuggling on the carpet.

“you look sexy.” erwin says, burying his nose into the two sizes too large shirt draping over levi’s small frame. levi shudders out a breath before demanding another round.

levi gets caught when he receives a phone call while he’s at work. he moves to the teacher lounge when he answers the call, cleaning cart left in the hallway as he stutters around his words. “w-what’s up?”

“do you know anything about maria high calling?”

“no.” levi says flatly.

erwin hums. “they said they called me about an interview last week, but i did not recall getting a communication from them.”

“weird.”

there’s silence over the phone, and levi feels hot all over. “levi.” erwin says quietly.

“it’s a catholic school, erwin. really?”

“what are you doing?”

“i’m at work.”

“levi, i swear.” there’s a clicking on his end, probably from the plastic of their home phone squeezing tightly against erwin’s shoulder.

“i…” levi shifts. he plays with a pencil on the table. pushes it so it rolls up, then catches it when it rolls back down. honestly, he feels like the retail job has been good for erwin. he’s less stressed, has more time to himself. the pay isn’t that great, but neither is teacher’s salary.

plus, he’s selfishly having fun with his preppy boyfriend.

“i…” levi swallows. “this isn’t so bad, is it?”

“what is?”

“what you have now.”

“i’m a  _teacher_ , levi.”

“it’s okay to breathe every once and awhile.”

“i can’t have this discussion with you right now. we will talk later.”

“whatever.”

erwin hangs up on him. levi doesn’t visit erwin at work that night, and he sits anxiously curled up on the couch for erwin to return home. when the door creaks open, the sound of keys dropping into the catch-all basket at the entrance, his whole body tenses. he keeps his eyes glued to the entryway, and when erwin fills it with his broad shoulders, he gasps.

“i’m sorry.” levi whispers.

“don’t be.” erwin says. he pulls at the knot in his tie. “i’m bisexual and agnostic. i can only lie so much.” he smiles softly. “how many other schools contacted me?”

“just one.”

“was it far away?”

“yeah.”

erwin comes into the room, tie held loose in his hand as he walks toward the couch. “i see.”

“it was for substitute teaching too.”

levi moves to drape his legs over the edge of the couch as erwin comes closer. erwin plants a leg on either side of levi’s lap, and he rests his weight on top of levi. he pulls levi’s arms up slowly, gently takes his wrists and wraps the tie between them slowly before tugging a knot between them tightly. he kisses him softly, presses a thumb lovingly at his cheekbone.

“i love you.” erwin says. 

levi’s breath doesn’t quite catch, but he manages to mutter, “i love you too.”

“but i have punish you now, you know that, right?”

levi’s pupils dilate, and he’s not sure how this is supposed to teach him a lesson, but he nods slowly as he bites his lip. “i’ll never do it again, daddy.”

erwin smiles and presses a kiss to levi’s palm. “good.”


	64. a moment of weakness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> something i wrote when i was having a real bad day. i don't normally do this, but... tw: cutting

it was quiet except for the hum of the humidifier. levi insisted it helped with erwin’s snoring, but erwin always woke up with a dry mouth and fuzzy teeth regardless. the left side of the bed, the small sliver between where the comforter ended and the edge of the bed, was ghostly warm to the touch. faint but there. it hadn’t been long.

erwin stirred from his spot, stretched out his arms and legs, his knuckles knocking into headboard with a quiet  _thunk_  before retracting back in to himself. he wiped the sleep from his eyes before passing his body over the specter next to him and rising out of bed.

the bathroom door was slightly ajar, a pale orange glow from the nightlight just inside of the room cutting a long stripe across the hallway floor. levi insisted, as he does, that the doors (every door) remained open. air flow, he always said. keeps the house from being stale.

“levi.” erwin said softly. he wondered for a moment if he had said anything at all, the rumble of his voice against his throat feeling like nothing but a passing gasp.

there was no answer, but there was a sticky sound of skin peeling from linoleum, and the gentle creak of wood under weight.

“levi, darling.” erwin said again, and it felt like something tangible and heavy in the air. it walked the last remaining steps to the bathroom doorway for him, his body too afraid to do it itself.

“erwin.” it was a cracked and weak sound. a leaf that shook precariously over the gaping mouth of a gorge, threatening to be sucked into depths that had no bottoms. “ _erwin_.” the sound of cupboards smacking against bone and the wet pat of skin hitting floor, and erwin’s body was able to come back into motion. 

he rushed to the bathroom and tried to open the door, but levi’s body was in the way, a heavy shoulder barricading it shut. “levi!” erwin said, not so much above a whisper, but a noise that sounded like it was doing everything to strangle the worry away from it.

“erwin. i did… i did a stupid…” it was quiet and ashamed, like a child who had spilled his milk on the counter. erwin sunk down to the floor, his knees resting on the plush of the carpet in the hallway, his shoulder pressing firmly against the door. “don’t be mad.”

“i could never be mad at you.”

the door moved against erwin, giving enough give to open it just a little more. “you will.”

“levi, no. never.” there was a silence. erwin closed his eyes, trying to hear levi’s breathing over the sound of the humidifier in the other room and he couldn’t. fuck, he couldn’t. “levi.”

“i can’t do it.” levi said softly. erwin swallowed the guilt when he asked levi to repeat him self. “i can’t do it!” levi shouted. the cabinet of the sink shuddered under the force of a fist or a foot–maybe both–colliding with it. “i can’t fucking do it!” he screamed. and there was a gasp that did nothing but swallow sobs, and he fell silent again except for the shudders that vibrated against the door.

“you can do anything.” erwin said.

“don’t feed me that bullshit, smith!” levi snapped. the door pushed against erwin’s shoulder, and he was losing him. fuck, he was losing him.

they’d been together for four years. they had fucked early, erwin choosing to ignore the scarring on his thighs and hips as details too intimate to delve into. it took two years for him to ask about them, his lips pressed tenderly to the thick purple etchings along the top of his thigh. it took three years for fresh red marks, puckered and raised like ridges of tilled farms, to stop appearing on white plains of skin.

“levi.”

“i…” levi swayed away from the door. “i’ll never be strong enough.” he whispered.

“you’re the strongest person i know.” and erwin meant it with every fiber of his being.

“then why does…”

“levi, may i please come in?”

there was a silence so long it felt endless, and the only damn thing, the only  _fucking_ thing erwin could hear was the  _fucking_  humidifier. “no.” levi finally croaked out. “no. no no. no.”

“i’m not mad, or upset, or disappointed. please, levi. let me in.”

“erwin.”

the barricade lifted, and erwin leaned into the door. it swung lazily open, revealing levi one painful second at a time, his body huddled up next to the bath tub. erwin’s straight razor laid on the floor next to the toilet. there was a crescent outline of red on the pearl floor, the rug having been kicked aside to avoid being dirtied. three long streaks of crimson, clear enough to see even in the dull light, decorated the side of levi’s calf.

“levi.” erwin said again, using his name to ground him, bring him back, to calm him.

levi shook his head and pressed his face to his knees. “i’m sorry.”

“don’t be sorry.”

“i’m not like i was. i’m not… i can’t…” levi’s voice caught into a groan, and his fingernails dug into his kneecaps.

erwin carefully nudged into the bathroom, half his body in, half is body out. “you’re just as strong as you always have been.”

“they won’t stop looking at me. i see her… erwin…” he looked up with pleading eyes. “erwin, her eyes. i can never forget her eyes.”

levi had talked about it before. just once. and only in this life.

“like… like… she was looking up for something more. like maybe if she looked hard enough she could peel open the sky…”

“you couldn’t do anything.”

“couldn’t i have!?” levi’s head snapped up, and erwin felt the spittle hit his face. “if i was only a few minutes faster, i could have–”

“we’re here now.” erwin said softly. lord knows he had a million and half ghosts clawing at his mind every day–despite the one that laid in his bed every night beside him. hell didn’t want them; but maybe hell was having to remember in a world where they had every reason to forget.

“ _but at what cost_?”

erwin was silent. he didn’t have an answer. he perhaps never would. their life now, surrounded by the mundanity of modern life, held little answers. if anything, it just perpetrated more pain. it made them feel regret.

“i’m sorry.” levi said again, resting his forehead to his knees. “i’m sorry.”

erwin looked at him, swallowed, and shook his head. 


	65. say good bye to the family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: the family
> 
> "Love, I can't get enough of that Levi, Farlan and Isabel drama-rama drabble. So good. If you have time please do try to write a continuation. I love reading your work. May it be a shit post or not haha. Sending lots of love and eruris!!"
> 
> [continuation of "meet the family" with an au where furlan and isabel survive a little longer]

“wow! what the crap, bro! are you serious?!” isabel nearly falls over the ledge of the roof in excitement, her legs kicking out and her heels landing heavily on gravel of the rooftop.

levi nods, and his lips threaten to tighten into a smile.

“so we’re on it, right?” furlan quirks a smile and stands up from his spot on the ledge.

“you have one of the highest kill counts in all of the corps. and isabel, your skills with riding and maneuvering has served well to set titans up for easy kills.” levi crosses his arms and hangs his head, dark hair falling before his eyes and shadowing his face in the night.

“so are we on it!?” isabel holds her hands out, begging like a poor man in front of levi.

“i put you both on the roster.” the smile comes out, and even the dark of the night can’t hide it.

“yaaaahooo!!” isabel punches the air, spins in her spot and then charges into levi, tightening her arms around his neck. “we’re gonna be on levi squad!”

“i don’t like that name…” levi mutters around isabel’s collar.

“it’s what it is, though.” furlan says, wrapping an arm around his two friends. “i’m proud of you.”

–

“i don’t approve this.”

“you said i could have anybody.”

“i will not accept nepotism.”

“nepo…” levi says it like he’s eaten something rotten, spits it out on the desk.

“your friends. i won’t allow them on your team.” erwin says. he doesn’t look up at levi as he’s signing his disapproval of levi’s proposed squad.

“that’s bullshit.”

“how so?” erwin peers up at him. his sharps lips chiseled by the faint glow of the candle light. he almost looks intimidating.

“i need men that can work without words. we need to work as extensions of each other. i’ve been with isabel and furlan for six years. i know when they’re exhausted; i know how much supplies they’ve used; fuck, i know when they’ve taken a shit.”

“it doesn’t matter.”

“yes it does! that’s all that matters! why start from scratch, when i have them!”

“levi.”

“i’m not running this squad without them.”

“ _levi_.”

levi growls. he slams his palm on erwin’s desk and glares down at erwin. “you know i’m right.”

erwin swallows, his eyes trailing down levi before landing back on the approval paper. “you’re dismissed.”

levi leans back and puts his hands on his hips. he glares down at erwin for a long moment before turning and leaving the office, slamming the door behind him.

–

“that’s fuckin’ bullshit.” furlan says over dinner. a bit of porridge dribbles down his lip before he catches it with the sleeve of his uniform jacket.

“yeah.” levi says. he had grabbed his ration, but has no intention of eating it.

“together, in trina squad, we’ve accumulated the most amount of kills and assisted kills in corps history.” isabel says, almost as an after thought, quiet and a bit hurt.

“i know.” levi says, irritation flaring around the edges of his words.

furlan pushes his food away. “fuckin’ commander…” his voice dips. “i never liked him. this just proves how irrational he is.”

levi is quiet.

“it makes no sense.” isabel says, and she’s done with her food as well, her wooden fork falling into the slop of oatmeal as she pushes her tray away.

levi closes his eyes before shooting up from his seat. “i’ll see you in the morning.”

“bro.” isabel says, but it’s already defeated. levi does what he wants.

furlan sits spinning his fork in his slop.

–

“i get it.” levi says, forcing his way into erwin’s office without a knock. he closes the door behind him gently before striding into the room. “but i can handle it.”

“good evening, levi.” erwin says. he doesn’t look up from his paperwork. a powerplay. it irritates levi.

“i don’t need you protecting me.” he says. “i can fuckin’ handle it.”

“it took a lot to get this special operations squad approved by zackley.” erwin says dryly. he still doesn’t look up.

“so you’ll intentionally put me out with an inferior squad…”

“they don’t trust you.”

“and you do?”

the muscles in erwin’s jaw move before he finally looks up. he looks older, much older than his late twenties, the candlelight etching shadows long his eyes and draining the meat from his cheeks. he nods once before looking back down at his paperwork. “you will have your squad.”

–

there are rumors that captain levi didn’t even try to free himself from the titan’s hold. eld had to cut away at the fingers with his blades, fly into him so his body wouldn’t fall to the ground and break even more than his ribs. there are rumors that he fought against oruro, that he tried to jump off horseback to return to them. 

there’s rumors that captain levi lost his mind out on the last expedition.

there’s a knock at his door, like there is every day at the same time. “leave it.” levi says. he winces, holds his ribs with delicate fingers, before groaning softly into his pillow. he’d been bedridden with injury for the past week, and he’s itching to get moving again. until the thought reminds him.

paralyzes him.

“levi.” the voice says through the door.

levi huffs a sigh, winces again, before gently shuffling his body to turn away from the door.

it opens, quietly, and footfalls scuff across the wooden planks of the floor. four paces, always four paces, then silence. a soft ruffling of papers from cloth, a tap, then four paces back to the door. the soft click of the door latching. and then silence.

levi drifts to sleep, wakes up to darkness. he forgets his ribs, breathes in deeply and moans out the pain of loss and defeat. he rolls toward the door and can see the slight sliver of white on his desk under the moonlight of his window. he licks his lips before mustering the strength to rise, hobbles over to the desk while leaning all his weight onto his left arm as he perches it at the end of table. with his right hand, he cautiously inspects the papers, unfolds it with his index and middle finger until he sees the white edges of wings peeking from the edge of the paper’s fold.

he gasps and steps back. keeps stepping back until the back of his knees hit the edge of the bed, and he falls back on it unable to breathe. 


	66. reminiscing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: reminiscing 
> 
> "What do you think Levi would've thought of adorable caddet!Erwin?"

“you might not believe it,” mike starts. a bit of foam from his ale remains on his mustache as he continues, “but erwin isn’t great at everything.”

“no shit.” levi huffs into his glass of water. there’s a roar from across the bar as a scout successfully chugs down an entire pint of beer.

“come on now.” erwin says, a drunken smile curling his lips. “i never said i was.”

“you act it!” hange shouts, spits out a mouthful of rum by accident as they lean forward heavily on the bar table.

erwin laughs, puts a his hands in front of his eyes and shakes his head. “go on, mike. i know where this is going.”

mike nods, wipes his hand across his mouth before he continues. “this man is awful with horses.”

levi looks over at erwin, a single eyebrow defying the composure of his emotions. “but that old white stallion you got…”

“the amount of hours ness has spent with that horse…” moblit says quietly.

“i will admit,” erwin says, rosy cheeked and a bit bashful. levi has never seen him in such a state. it stirs something in his gut, and he forces himself to look away. “i am not great with animals. they require a kind of patience that i can’t seem to fathom.”

“he almost got kicked out of training.” mike’s grin turns into a toothy one.

“no way.” nanaba says. there’s another hoot from across the bar. one of the newer scouts is dancing on the bar while the others starts to clap to a non-existent tune. “commander, that can’t be true.”

erwin laughs, runs his hand down his face and shakes his head. “oh, it most certainly is.”

“he got his foot caught in a stirrup once. he got dragged halfway across the field before it came free.”

“it was a miracle i didn’t die!”

“some miracle.” levi says with a huff, still refusing to look at erwin.

“i’ve never laughed so hard.” mike says, finishing his drink with a  _thunk_  of the mug on the table. “and not to mention the time that…”

erwin laughs loud enough to silence most of the bar. “no, no! mike!”

“… you had the meal bag around your waist…”

“no no!” erwin covers his mouth. the rest of the table is alit with smiles at their commander who is too drunk to compose himself to stoney perfection. levi finds his eyes back on erwin, a finger covering the gentle curve of his lips. “don’t finish this story or…” he barks out another laugh and places a heavy hand on the table.

“and that stupid young mare came over and shoved her face right into it, and…”

“oh no.” hange breathes softly.

“oh yes.” mike chuckles.

levi barks out a laugh, and the entire pub goes silent. the entire atmosphere sobers, and levi feels every single pair of eyes on him. he shrinks in on himself, feels the heaviness of erwin’s jovial smile on him. he hides behind his mug of water and looks out the window.

“our belts were not as well constructed back then.” erwin says softly. his cheeks are so pink, they look raw to the touch. the table erupts in laughter, and the rest of the bar buzzes again into rare celebration. 

levi shifts uncomfortably and keeps his eyes away from the rest of the crew.

at the end of the night, levi vouches to take erwin back to the barracks alone. the rest of the vets had decided to stay a few more rounds until they couldn’t see straight, but the commander had to be back to work. levi debates whether erwin ever takes a break.

“you’re a mess.” levi says as erwin stumbles heavily into him. levi slips a steady arm around his mid-section to hold him upright.

“do you think less of me?” it drawls out, honest and hot and it weighs the air around them.

“you think i had a high opinion of you to begin with?”

erwin’s feet shuffle to a stop, and he braces his palms on his thighs. he laughs loud, from his belly, and he shakes his head. “i suppose not.”

levi catches erwin before he almost falls forward. “i don’t think any differently.” levi says, pushing the taller man up to stand straight. “well…”

“well?” erwin looks down at levi. his lips are quivered in a smile.

“it’s nice to know you’re just like the rest of us.” levi says as he starts walking again.

“what did you think i was?”

levi bites around the inside of his mouth and doesn’t answer.

“levi?”

levi swallows and shakes his head. “nothing.”

“you think i’m nothing?”

“shut up.”

“i’m wounded.” erwin huffs a laugh.

they’re halfway to headquarters when the word slips out like a whisper in a hallway. like a croak of a frog. like a regret in a memory.

“perfect.”

“hm?” erwin shuffles to a stop, his heavy hand sitting on levi’s nape.

“i thought you were perfect.”

erwin doesn’t say anything. after a minute, levi worries and looks up at him. erwin looks spooked, his eyes round and lips slightly parted. “i…”

“you’re far from it.”

his lips seal together. levi watches the bob of his throat that matches the nod in his head.

“you’re better this way.”

erwin’s face relaxes into a gentle smile. “you think?”

levi shrugs, turns his head back down to the road and drags them along again toward the barracks. “yeah.”


	67. sweater weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for anon. prompt: sweater weather

levi sits snuggled in erwin’s lap, his head resting on erwin’s chest as he scrolls through his phone. the cuffs of his sweater pinch his fingers closed, his leggings curving across every hint of muscle, his wiggling toes covered by thick socks. erwin places a kiss on the top of his warm scalp, tasting the faint aroma of pumpkin spice and apple pie.

“any plans today, darling?” erwin says. he flips a page of his science journal, resting his lips back on top of levi’s head.

“nah.” 

“no apple picking?”

levi shakes his head.

“pumpkin picking?”

levi nuzzles his cheek against erwin before shaking his head again.

“haunted hayride?” he chuckles as levi butts into him.

“i just wanna stay home. it’s too cold.”

erwin puts his journal down, and wraps his arms around levi, pressing him deeper into his body. “it’s sixty degrees out.”

“it’s  _cold_.” levi presses his nose to erwin’s cheek, and he makes a soft mock squeak. “told you.”

erwin tilts his head and kisses lips that are chilled, levi shifting against him and putting his phone down on the back of the couch. “whatever shall we do?”

levi brings his hands up, cups them on either side of erwin’s face, and his finger tips are like ice cubes burning and melting into the flush across erwin’s cheeks. “erwin.” he tries to scold, but erwin has his fingers laced in one of levi’s hands, pulling his hand from his face and moving his fingers inside the cuff of his sweater. “what are you…”

“what kind of husband would i be…” erwin says, digging his fingers inside the cuff of levi’s sweater, feeling the warm pulse of his wrist against his fingers. “if i let you die of cold?”

“i never said i was gonna die.” but he succumbs easily to the hungry lips that encompass his, and he licks at them, lets erwin’s tongue lap against his, and he groans so softly it warms them both from the inside out. “you’re so warm.” levi moans out, and he shifts eagerly on erwin’s lap to reposition himself. he turns and straddles erwin’s wide lap, connects their lips again, drags his chilled fingers up the cords of erwin’s neck, presses his thumbs deep into his jaw, kisses him with deep need. he draws his thumb up to erwin’s bottom lip, parts their mouths long enough to dip the digit in, and watches with a hitched gasp as the pink of erwin’s tongue flicks out to taste the pad of his thumb.

“and you taste good.” erwin says, wrapping his lips around levi’s thumb, sucks it once before nipping the end of it with his teeth. he smiles, self satisfied by the vacant look of lust on his husband’s face. and it doesn’t take long to have his mouth attacked again by cold lips and chilled fingers. he moans softly into the touches, plants his hands firmly on levi’s hips. his oversized sweater rides up his back, exposes his ass, and erwin moves his hands down to cup it in his hands, squeezes it so hard that the meat of it bulges between his fingers.

“why do you gotta be so touchy?”

erwin releases his hold on levi, folds his arms under and into levi’s sweater. big hands map along the plains of shoulder blades and the valley of his soft spine stir something deep in his groin, and he bubbles a groan out before saying: “i  _love_  sweater weather.”


	68. worry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for winglysimmer. prompt: worry
> 
> "Special tea time for oh-who-knows request: Levi and Erwin preparing for their son William going into heart surgery (actor AU)"

They’ve grown soft.  
  
They’ve grown soft in all the ways that made them hard before. The etchings along their mouths; the doughyness on their tummies; the callouses on their hearts. But they’re soft now, faces cradled between tiny palms covered in things that would have made him cringe before. Placing kisses on cheeks covered in dirt or sauce or tears.  
  
They’re soft now.  
  
And the bleach, it burns. It stings his eyes and curdles his lungs and he’s breathing so hard as the tears dry against his skin, salty and sticky. Salty and sticky. He’s swimming in his head but it feels like it’s real, and he’s grown so soft. Why has he grown so soft?  
  
She’s beautiful. He’s said the words “perfect” enough times into her golden hair that there are enough words to count every strand. And he’s said “I love you” enough times to fill an eternity but it would never be enough. It could never be enough.  
  
He’s so soft now, but the bleach turns his hands pink like the dresses of her dolls, and he knows they will crack and peel in time. And his husband–so strong and so soft–would heal him. Kiss him. Not even respond when he questions what he did to deserve him. He doesn’t deserve him.  
  
“Honey.” And the voice sounds like it. Sweet and delicious, and it’s the voice that turned him soft, and sometimes he hates. He fucking hates it. “Come to bed, please.” He begs. He begs.  
  
“The tub…” He says. It’s a croak, a crack, a pang.  
  
“It’s clean.” He settles down next to him, places his hand on his forearm. Firmly. Not soft.  
  
“What if…”  
  
“We have a long day tomorrow, love.“ His hand squeezes, but it’s gentle. “We need you rested.”  
  
“But the tub.”  
  
“Levi.”  
  
He’s forgotten. He doesn’t seem like Levi anymore. Glitter and pop-tarts and ballet lessons. Car seats and Happy Meals. Little hands between his and Erwin’s, kicking up wet sand as they make footprints along the beach.  
  
Family.  
  
“She…” Levi drops the sponge from his hand. It makes a wet plop as it hits the porcelin. “She’s too young… She’s too young to be….”  
  
“They’re professionals. They know what they’re doing.”  
  
She’s adopted but when Levi turns his head to look at his husband, he sees the same gentle concern in his eyes that she gives to him… And he wonders who is rubbing off on who, and just how important blood is when it comes to relation…  
  
And he’s grown so soft.  
  
“She’s so beautiful…” Levi says quietly. It unravels like a ball of string, tumbles on the tile floors, sits at Erwin’s lap waiting to be wound back up again. “She’s ours…”  
  
“And she always will be, darling. She’ll be healthier. Stronger.”  
  
They’d grown so soft.  
  
“But what if–” Levi reaches over the edge of the tub, grabs the sponge and leans over the ledge with sore knees embossed with checkerboards, and he scrubs. He scrubs and scrubs and Erwin pulls him back. Pulls him into his chest and wraps his arms around him.  
  
Strong. Strong.  
  
“She needs this.”  
  
“Tell me.” He squeezes the sponge in his hand and it drains water across the front of both their shirts. It’ll stain; it’ll stain; it’ll stain. “Tell me.”  
  
“Levi…”  
  
Levi shudders, and the words rail out of him like marbles down a washboard. “We broke her!”  
  
“She’ll be ok.”  
  
He becomes soft, malleable like clay in Erwin’s lap, and he cries and cries until there’s nothing left but salty stone. And he’s a father. A father that bleeds and cries and would die if it brought happiness and health to her.


	69. everywhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i had eruri feels

i see you.

i see you in all the places you used to be. and sometimes in the places you weren’t. and you’re like a ghost. a shadow.

i see you as shadows across the wall. flickering and dancing like you did. do you remember dancing? do you remember when you took my hand? do you remember what they whispered?

do you remember when you said you didn’t care?

i died a thousand times to get back to you. i died a thousand times to see your shadows across the glass of your office’s window. too stubborn to sleep. too stubborn to eat. but do you remember when i took your hand? do you remember what i whispered?

do you remember when you said you cared about me too?

and now you’re nothing but memories. you’re in my dreams–but i guess you always have been. you tell me. you tell me with that shitty look on your face:

“my dream is not good enough for you.”

i want to believe it. i want it to be wrong. i want it to be selfish.

you’ve become my ghost. my shadow. my hell.

but the dream was yours. the dream was you. and everything.

everything about you.

i love.


	70. surprise snack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for the-memoirs-of-a. prompt: surprise snack
> 
> "Prompt: Levi has some aphrodisiac food for the first time (not knowingly) while they are fund raising at the capitol. How will Erwin help his "big" problem?"

levi’s never had river oysters before. they taste dirty, like the river soot. but they go down easy with wine, and if anything, they help keep an unfriendly grimace on his face to ward off the noble fucks.

he hates these things. these stupid charades, the disgusting display of cock sizes through the guise of gold rings and expensive colognes. he hates even more that erwin needs to play along. dammit. he’s so loud. he’s laughing in the ballroom loud enough to drown out the band playing in the corner. he’s so loud that he can barely make out the words of the people standing near him.

levi shifts and turns back to the food table. he kicks his head back and swallows down another oyster with a shake of his head. he follows it with the last of his wine before slamming the glass onto the table.

“you must be captain levi.” says a voice.

levi turns slowly, pressing his hand down the front of his blue formal military jacket. the decorations on his chest jingle as he shifts, and he remembers erwin’s words:  _just be nice_. he adjusts the gold cuffs of his jacket and steadies his breath.

“yes.”

the man offers a hand. levi takes it and squeezes a little too hard. he doesn’t pay attention to the words coming from the man’s mouth. he focuses on erwin’s laugh, hones in on his boisterous discussion about the time he played horseshoes and accidentally broke the man’s glasses. levi tries to connect the two incidences into a storyline that makes any kind of sense.

levi’s conversation ends, though he’s not quite sure how. he shucks down two more oysters before he slinks his way toward erwin. he takes a glass of wine from a waiter’s tray without him noticing and downs it in one gulp. he walks up to erwin’s conversation and interrupts with a bark. “erwin.”

erwin startles mid conversation, wide-eyed and bewildered down at his captain. “oh, captain levi.”

levi’s mouth twitches to a thin line. “commander.”

“have you all met–” erwin starts.

“i have urgent news to share with you.” levi says. “from headquarters.”

erwin eyes him and nods. he excuses himself with apologies and bows, his decorated chest chiming like bells. he straightens up and places a hand on levi’s back to guide him out of the grand ballroom, a soft and simple question escaping his tired lungs: “what is it, captain?”

and levi doesn’t really have an answer. he shrugs, remains quiet until they make it into the large, high ceiling foyer. he looks up at erwin, stern and strong like stone, and his eyes drop eagerly to erwin’s lips.

“levi, i do hope you understand how important tonight is for the continued success of our expeditions.” erwin nothing short but irritated.

“i’m bored.” levi says quietly. 

“then find a way to entertain yourself, captain.” erwin turns to leave, but levi tugs him back by the cuff of his jacket.

“don’t make me go back up there.”

“levi. please…”

“don’t make me go back up there when you look like… this.” there’s a hint of a smile on his lips, and it threatens to reveal itself completely when he sees the flash in erwin’s eyes.

“what are you implying?”

“i hate when you look this handsome.”

“ _levi_.” erwin looks around nervously, but levi tugs on his jacket again.

“and your voice…” levi sucks between his teeth. “you know what–”

“ _levi!”_ erwin shouts. a couple on their way out pause to look, but scuttle along their way in an attempt to mind their own.

“i just want to…”

“i know what you want.”

“then  _give_  it to me.”

erwin eyes flash, and he swallows thickly. he stands for a moment, and levi can see the gears turning behind the vacant stare. hesitantly, erwin presses his hand into levi’s shoulder and hastily pushes them down a hallway. a butler bows to them, starts to offer something, but erwin dismisses him. they’ve been here before, erwin knows where to go.

he knocks on the washroom door before quickly pushing it open. he nearly throws levi into it as he slams the door shut behind them. erwin turns the lock and presses his back to the door, takes black hair into his gloved fist and pulls levi’s head back to look at him. “you can’t possibly wait?”

“like you don’t want my mouth around that cock of yours,  _commander_.” levi’s mouth goes slackjaw, his tongue hanging slightly out of his mouth, a drunken grin curling his lips.

erwin moves his hand down, holds levi’s chin tightly with his hand and growls his agitation into his mouth. he bows himself down and kisses the captain hard enough to bruise, and it puts them both off balance. they stumble into the wash basin, levi’s legs hiking up and attempting to wrap around erwin’s mid section. their hot arousals rub against together, protected and burdened by high waisted pants. levi groans, his head smacking against the mirror, erwin trailing his tongue along the shell of his ear and biting down hard onto his earlobe.

“you get…” erwin breathes, rutting his hips into levi, and maybe he wants this just as badly as his subordinate. “so damn  _fussy_  at these things.”

“i like seeing you so…” levi tries to find the words against his lust, finally whimpering out, “fucking  _powerful_.” he gasps again when erwin humps against him, the mirror rattling against the golden wallpaper. 

“i’d fuck you until that rotten mouth falls away,” erwin says, but his kisses are tender and loving across his cheeks until he migrates to levi’s lips and bites them until they damn near bleed. “but i’m afraid i do not have time for that.”

“then you better put something in it to shut it up.”

erwin looks down at him and swallows. his eyes are heavy with lust, two shades darker than normal when all he sees is levi. and he nods besides himself, lets levi push him away and back against the door. levi presses a palm against erwin’s length, kisses his chest with all those stupid, pointless decorations. they don’t appreciate erwin.

they don’t appreciate him like levi does.

“levi…”

“too bad i can’t feel you in me right now.” levi coos.

“ _fuck_.”

levi unbuttons the top of erwin’s pants. he pulls the zipper down, slowly. he gets to his knees, opens his mouth around erwin’s balls through his clothes and massages them in his lips. erwin’s legs shake around him, and he grabs hold of the sink basin to keep himself upright. levi’s hand folds deftly into erwin’s underwear and pulls his thick erect cock from his pants, holds it firmly in his hand as he looks up under long lashes at his commander.

erwin grips the porcelin of the sink, gasping heavily as levi begins to move his hand, still tonguing and mouthing erwin through his white uniform pants. “you’ll stain my clothes.” erwin manages to whimper out.

levi takes a moment to lean back, his thumb planted on the underside of erwin’s head, his lips grazing against the tip as he talks. “then won’t they be jealous?” with one hand, he pushes erwin back against the door, massages erwin’s balls while he eagerly sucks the head of erwin’s cock into his mouth.

erwin moans, his one leg buckling from under him, and he takes his other hand and roughly tangles his fingers in levi’s hair. he drags levi’s face into him, looks down with awe as his cock presses along the inside of levi’s mouth, a girthy bump inside his cheek. 

he fucks levi’s mouth like a warm cunt, or better yet, like levi’s tight opening. he watches as levi adjusts his head around his size, licks and sucks at him like his cock is a thing to be worshiped. levi keeps eye contact as long as he can, until the bobbing of his head becomes too frantic, and he closes his eyes in concentration.  “fuck, you’re so  _warm_.” erwin groans out as levi bobs his head off his cock. he rushes a hand to his face in irritation, missing levi around him, but knowing that he needs to be patient.

his captain would never dissatisfy him.

levi does well to respect their schedule. he comes back at erwin with an open throat, swallowing down his cock until his nose is buried in the dark curls at the base. he breathes sharply through his nose, his gag reflex around erwin’s cock having been well trained. erwin tries to find his mind, runs his hand down to gently run on the underside of levi’s throat, feels it moving under his fingers like an undulating, dying thing as it suffers to pull in air around his massive size. levi pulls back, swallows off the tip of erwin’s cock before taking him in again. erwin’s eyes roll to the back of his head, and it takes everything in him to keep upright. “god, levi.  _fuck_.” 

levi slips back, and he works on kissing the soft skin at erwin’s hip bone as he pumps his hand up and down erwin’s length. “later,” levi whispers against erwin, “when we’re riding back in the carriage, i’ll sit on you and let the road fuck me with your cock.” levi lazily drags his hand up and down erwin’s slick cock, and he’s looking up at him again with sultry eyes. “would you enjoy that, commander?”

“you’re filthy…”

levi moans against erwin’s hip before turning his head to nose the base of his cock. “so you’d like that?”

“i always like making love to you.”

“who’s being the filthy one now?” levi stops, kisses his cock one last time, and moves to tuck erwin back into his underwear.

“what…?”

levi carefully zips erwin’s pants and buckles his belts. he stands up and places a soft kiss on his chest, and smooths out his lapels. “i don’t want to get you  _dirty,_ commander. today is an important day.”

“you…”

“i was bored.” levi says, deadpan and vacant. he turns to look at himself in the mirror for a moment and smooths out his hair. he nods slightly at himself before reaching for the door. “if you would excuse me, i have some asses to kiss.”

“are you really…”

“i bet you i’m gonna get three expeditions out of that old fuck upstairs.”

“how?” erwin is still swimming in his head, still painfully aroused and ridiculously confused.

“some dumbasses believe in my capabilities apparently.” levi looks down at erwin’s crotch.

“you’re very capable.”

levi nods and licks his lips. “we’ll celebrate on the ride home then.” he palms his own erection to adjust it in his pants before motioning for the door. “good luck, commander.”

erwin breathes deeply through his nose and places a heavy hand on levi’s shoulder. he bows his head and takes in the warm spicy scent of levi’s hair in, releasing a satisfied moan out his nose as he speaks. “good luck, captain.”

erwin kisses the top of levi’s head before he leaves, and it takes erwin nearly ten minutes to finally lose his erection before proceeding back to the party.


	71. carriages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for kittyboo, anon, and myself. prompt: carriages
> 
> (sequel to 'surprise snack')
> 
> "Hello! Please make a sequel with the carriage sex. Bonus points if they get caught XD Consider yourself prompted. Thanks Dad, I love you."  
> "I want the carriage hmmmm prompt :p it would be so cool ! Please !"

“you did good today.” erwin says. his hands are folded behind his back, his chin up and his posture nothing short of professional.

levi shrugs. “whatever.”

“it’s only because of you that we’re able to have made so many strides in the past couple of years.”

“i’m sure.”

“please, take the compliment.”

levi shakes his head as the carriage rattles and pulls to a stop in front of them. the driver dismounts and scuttles to the door and opens it for the two men. the vehicle sways at their weight as they climb in, erwin taking the seat that faces the front and levi sitting across. levi disrobes his gloves immediately to his side and shakes out his fingers. the driver closes the door behind them. “what else am i supposed to do? this is my job.”

“i suppose. however…”

“stop it.” levi unbuttons the front of his jacket. the carriage jostles alive as they start along their way. “you don’t need to thank me all the time. it’s exhausting.”

“i…”

“it takes an hour to get back to headquarters.” levi works at his belt buckles, and he feels erwin’s gaze fall heavily on him. “i don’t want to hear another word from your mouth that doesn’t involve you saying how much you wanna fuck me.”

erwin sits back in his seat. he follows suit, unbuttons his jacket and lets it hang open across his chest. he plays with his buckles and unzips his fly. his cock is out before levi can even blink, and he works slowly at his limp dick. “it was very rude of you what you did back there.”

levi tuts as he pulls a boot off. then the other. they fall heavily to the floor of the carriage, and he’s up like a fluid floating in the air, his hips rolling as he drags his pants down around his thighs.

erwin gasps, takes his other hand and drags levi toward him. he squeezes one of levi’s ass cheeks, presses a kiss to his stomach, and holds him steady as they crest over a particularly large bump in the road. “i hate to pull rank on you.”

“you  _love_  it.” levi says. he sucks in air as he feels erwin’s fingers linger toward his hole, and he feels the gentle pressure of desire weighing down on all his limbs. and he sighs out when a raw digit slips in, and moans out a little when erwin’s mouth finds itself around the head of his cock. “ _fuck_.”

erwin works him open, sucks him in, moans against his cock and sends shivers up levi’s spine. he slips another finger in, and levi’s legs buckle too much for him to recover, and his arms land on erwin’s shoulder, his dick deep into erwin’s mouth. “who taught you to suck dick so well?”

erwin laughs around levi’s cock before slipping off of it. he presses a third digit in, and brings levi to rest his knees on either side of his lap. his erection rubs against levi’s thighs, and it nearly makes him go cross-eyed. “you did, i suppose.”

levi grins, bows his head and kisses erwin. but the rush is gone from earlier, and it’s tender and heated–and even though they never talk about it–it’s full of admirable love. “fuck me.”

erwin kisses him again, slowly, savoring the taste of wine on his lips as if he hadn’t had enough of it himself. he breaks the kiss, and fumbles with the pocket on his jacket before pulling out the small vile of lube from it. rough fingering was one thing; they had learned their lesson about dry fucks several parties earlier. 

levi takes the bottle from erwin and sits down so he’s balancing on the end of erwin’s knees, erwin’s hand moving to massage his inner thighs with careful and quiet patience. with a dab of the slick liquid in his palm, levi leans over and pumps erwin’s cock slowly, resuming his slow and precise kisses.

“now.” levi fidgets on erwin’s lap and positions himself above erwin’s cock. his limbs shake with anticipation, and erwin steadies him again as the carriage sways.

“no.”

“what?”

“turn around.” erwin breathes. “what will people think if we’re facing each other?”

“that i take the commander’s cock like a good captain.” levi says, a smile curving his lips.

erwin chuckles, kissing the corner of levi’s mouth. “you can still be a good captain.” he runs a hand up and squeezes his jaw tight, levi’s lips puckering to be taken by erwin. he releases levi and commands: “ _turn around_.”

levi obliges. he stands up and turns, before the carriage shakes him and causes him to stumble back into erwin. erwin wraps his arms around his captain’s waist with a soft groan. he buries his face in the small of levi’s back, kisses a scar that he remembers having helped to heal. he kisses up the valley levi’s spine, runs his hand down his abdomen and feathers his hand across levi’s cock. “hold the handle, darling.”

levi’s head swivels up and he goes to grab hold of the handle above the door. “move over.” they both shift toward the wall of the carriage and erwin’s arms circle him tighter and pull him down so his hard cock presses between levi’s cheeks. “oh fuck,” levi whimpers, trying to sit down more on erwin, but erwin pulls him closer and laughs into his back.

“no, no. what was it that you said?”

levi growls. “that you’re gonna fuck me.”

“no, the part about the carriage…”

“you asshole, i was joking.”

erwin pulls levi down with one arm tight around his front, and guides his cock with his other hand. they both moan as erwin pushes into him, slow and hot, and erwin sinks his teeth into the soft flesh of levi’s back when he whimpers. levi slowly moves on him, his feet planted on the floor and his ass moving to drag up and down. agonizingly pleasurable in the most frustrating of ways. 

“fuck,  _levi.”_ erwin breathes. with one hand splayed across levi’s stomach, he takes levi’s hand and raises it above their heads to grasp onto the handle. “hold on… with both hands. please.”

“you’re sadistic.” but levi does as he’s told. the head of erwin’s cock stays in him, but it’s not enough, he wants to sit down and be full and empty his frustrations out across the inside of the carriage. a bead of sweat trails down his temple and round his chin, and it drips down to the floor as he grumbles in agitation.

“good, good.” erwin runs his hand up under levi’s shirt, rubs his fingers across a soft nipple and pinches tight enough to draw a sharp breath from levi. “you’re so patient with me.”

“too patient.” levi groans, and it turns to a moan when they pass over a bump, driving erwin’s cock deeper into him for a short moment before teasing him just barely open with the tip again. “ _yes_.”

“keep holding.” erwin keeps one hand to an erect nipple, his other hand running up to trace along a strained bicep, plump and hard underneath the heavy blue cashmere of his formal uniform. “perfection.”

levi tries to turn his head to look at erwin, but he just ends up dragging lips against erwin’s knuckles, bites down into them as they hit another bump. erwin squeezes his arm as he thrusts up into him without assistance, and they both gasp. “erwin!”

erwin moves his hands to levi’s hips, holds his hanging body still as he adjusts his position, moves up into levi with gentle thrusts. “our lives,” erwin starts, his fingers fitting perfectly into the grooves of levi’s hips, “we are not very lucky, are we?”

“i don’t want to have–” levi whimpers as another jostle fucks him open, and he buries his face into the crook of his arm.

“i’ve been thinking.” erwin says, kissing soft trails along scars and lapping up sweat with the flat of his tongue. he sucks in air between his teeth as he fucks into levi harder than before, his patience starting to wane as he loses hold of his desire for his captain. “i am lucky to have you, levi.”

“i’m just a man,” levi mutters, his eyes sliding shut as he enjoys erwin taking control over nature. 

“you’re mine.” erwin speaks, almost shyly, and he presses a warm cheek to levi’s back as the carriage sways, and he slides in levi–in and out.

levi opens his eyes, looks at the dark curtains that cover the windows and bites his lip. closing his eyes again, he nods just once, indeterminable from the sway of the carriage. he moans quietly as erwin meets up to him again, running soft hands along his bare skin like he’s never felt it before–like he’ll never be able to again.

“mm, get up, love.” erwin says. he pats levi’s leg, and levi does as he’s told. his cock hanging between his legs, eager and dripping, but he knows he won’t be disappointed–erwin always takes care of him. rough fingers trail down his bare sides, thumbs dipping into the fold of where his ass meets his thighs, and erwin bites his lip. “i’m afraid i can’t continue like this.”

levi looks over his shoulder in a silent plea.

“kneel.” his head juts up. “over there.”

levi listens, sets his knees on the seat across from erwin, and braces his arms flat in front of his face against the wall. erwin stands up, the jingle of belts sounding as his pants fall down around his knees and fold over the top of his boots. he rests a hand on levi’s hip, and guides his cock inside of levi again, softly cooing words of endearment as he thrusts deeply into him. he moves along with levi, one hand moving up to hold the handle above the door, one knee moving up to rest next to levi and adjusting their position on the seat. levi scrambles his position, losing purchase as the carriage sways, but he manages to keep upright as erwin thrusts into him again.

erwin folds over him, grasps his cock and pumps in time with each roll of his hips. he buries his face in hair that’s grown damp with sweat, whispers words into his ears that make levi’s mouth drop open in loud moans. the carriage rocks, and levi falls to the side, his face buried in the cushions, erwin grunting as he falls free from his captain. he pushes levi down across the seat and hurriedly thrusts back into him. levi cries out into the cushion, “harder!”

erwin obliges this time, ramming deep into him, as they grip tightly to the whatever they can to stay connected. levi takes over the rubbing of his cock as erwin hits the rhythm he does that signals climax. a few more carriage sways and erwin grunts deep, pulls out quickly, and spurts thick come across the dip in levi’s spine. he strokes himself as he finishes, drags his cock down between levi’s ass cheeks and presses it between his thighs. he lets the carriage fuck his spent cock against his balls, feels levi’s fevered hand tap against the sensitive head as he tries to finish himself off.

leaning over levi’s back, his belly becoming dirty with his own seed, he presses a kiss to levi’s cheek. “do you need help, darling?”

levi grunts, pushing his ass back into erwin’s hips, and the stimulation of erwin’s cock between his legs pushes him over the edge. he comes, hot and thick and across the suede of the carriage cushion without any kind of remorse for cleanliness. he bites down on the fabric of his jacket and growls as he continues to come, erwin’s hands roaming around him as he twitches exhausted and limp on the seat.

turning his body, erwin falls back down onto his seat across from levi and threw his head against the wall. he sighs loudly before he moves to pull his pants back up. he never takes his eyes off of levi, watches with a sense of pride and comfort at how unraveled and content levi looks with his cheek pressed against the carriage seat. “perfection.” erwin gasps.

levi snorts, ass still up and bare, eyes languidly closed with a faint crook of a smile dimpling his cheek. “shut up.”

erwin runs a hand down his face and shakes his head. with a chuckle, he nods. “how are we going to clean this up?”

levi slumps down in his seat, groaning and shaking his head. “that’s your job to figure out, commander.”

pouting his lips, erwin groans. “shit.”


	72. smiley face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a tea time for me because
> 
> reasons

“’you have a nice smile; smiley face.’ hmm.” petra says.

“oi!” levi fumbles with his phone and hides the screen against his chest. “what the fuck?”

petra comes up from behind him and puts a lidded cup in front of him, the tea bag string pinned under it, and takes a seat across from him. “is that…”

“it’s fuckin’  _nobody_.” levi spits, puts his phone down onto the table face down. he slumps in his chair, bars one arm over his chest and picks up his tea with the other. he takes a sip and curses as he puts it back down. “ _fuck_ , that’s hot.”

“yeah, it’s tea.” petra says. “spill it.”

“i don’t want to make a mess.” levi says, deadpan, but the smile hints his lips.

“ _hilarious_.” petra kicks her leg under the table and nails him in the shin. their cups jump on the table as he shifts under it. “is it that–”

“it’s  _nobody_.”

“nobody sure does get you all pink.” petra grins, her top teeth catching her bottom lip in a crooked smile. “he was nice.”

levi sighs. “he’s all right.”

“have you guys been talking since the party?”

“not talking. texting.”

“ok, that still answers my question.” petra leans over the table. she looks at him like she does when she’s fishing in the pond of levi’s mind. she knows how to jut the lure just at the right time to get him to bite. luckily, she’s a catch and release kind of girl. “you never even use smilies with me. this must be serious.”

“we aren’t even friends.”

“do you want to be?”

“petra.”

“you could use more friends.”

“you’re enough.”

“awwww. you’re just saying that because i’m enough maintenance to take the place of three people.”

levi grins. “bingo.”

the phone buzzes, rattling their cups across the surface of the table. they both look at it, then up at each other, and petra kicks levi in the shin again before he has a chance to reach for his phone. snapping it away, she punches in his number code and opens his message.

“what did he say!?” levi says, a bit shrill, and it makes him blush deeper.

“‘you do too. winky face.’“ petra looks up, teeth fully showing. “does he… waaaiiitt.”

“no.”

“you guys have…”

“no!”

“yes you have. you’ve seen each other since.”

“i–”

“you sneaky bitch.” she drops levi’s phone to the table and leans over. she’s all but forgotten her drink at this point. “ _what did you guys do?”_

“we had coffee, ok, calm down.”

“liar.” she points at levi’s tea. “you hate coffee.”

“ _i_  had tea. he had coffee. dumbass.”

“uh-huh.”

levi shrugs. “then we just… that was it.”

petra eyes him up and down. “did you kiss?”

levi heats under petra’s stare, like a lizard under a lamp. “nah.” he moves his eyes around the coffee shop before sighing loudly. “ok,  _yes_.”

“ _oh my god!!!”_

“quiet down, for fuck’s sake.”

“i’ve known you  _how_ long?”

“like thr–”

“and i’ve never seen you with anybody! this is… wow. levi. and him? wow.  _wow_. you gotta teach me some of your weird moves. what’d you do, lure him in with some shit humor?”

levi blushes deeper.

“you actually  _are_  hopeless.” petra laughs.

levi leans forward on the table and puts his face in his palms. “i know.” he groans.

“i’m just jokin’, levi. i’m happy for you.”

“yeah?”

“sure. i get to be your best man.”

levi drops his head and presses his forehead into the table. it’s cool and provides a bit of relief to the heat on his face. “shut up.”

petra sits back, picks up her coffee and nods with a content smile on her face. she removes the hook from levi’s mouth and lets him free, takes a sip of her coffee. she doesn’t speak about it again for the rest of the day, even when levi chances glances at his phone and smiles. she just smiles along with him.


	73. unknown appreciation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for shadowgale96's headcanon:
> 
> "I like the idea of Erwin not initially realizing he’s attracted to Levi. He tries to brush it off as being impressed with Levi’s combat skills but Mike ain’t havin it. Then Erwin realizes, yeah Mike’s right. He’s interested in Levi, and he’s Bi as fuck."

erwin’s been impressed with his men before. every single one that enters the corps holds his respect, even when their knees shake and their fingers misfire against their snapblade triggers. they’re all brave, and every one of their hearts belong to him to cherish like the delicate birds they fly alongside.

levi belongs to him too. he saw his heart beating and exposed, red and angry, pounding like a thousand hooves across never ending fields. he felt pride. he felt fear. he felt admiration, and he decided then that he would fight to keep levi with him.

erwin takes the bolo tie. the ceremony is not much of one–a short thing of five minutes between expense meetings. zackley says some words as he presents the wooden box to the new commander of the survey corps. he says things that make levi physically bite his lip when erwin recounts them.

“he thinks you’ll die.”

“we all will.” erwin says. the bolo tie feels heavy on his chest, but it’s not any heavier than the panic that has become apart of his bones.

“i think he wants you to fail.” levi says quietly. “is what i mean.”

“he will be disappointed.” he pauses at a door and opens it for his captain in training. “i have the best men working for me.”

levi eyes him. erwin’s lips squeeze together just enough to betray him. levi walks through the door.

“he’s strong.” mike says. “and fast.” he swivels his head around as levi zips past them in the training forest. “he’s already surpassed my kill count, you know.”

“yes, i am aware.”

“he’s a pain in the ass.”

erwin turns his head toward mike and nods. “you are correct.”

“do you think he deserves this new title?”

“captain?” erwin confirms.

mike sniffs and nods. “you know i trust you.”

“yes.”

“but i don’t trust him.”

“then it is good that it is not your decision to make.” erwin finishes the discussion with a turned back.

“erwin.” mike speaks. erwin stops in his place, a year of commanding not enough to break the familiarity between them. “don’t let your feelings overtake your senses.”

he holds the bolo tie in his hand, and it feels heavy like every heart that’s ever stopped on the battlefield. he finds himself whispering names in his dreams and in his quiet moments. levi doesn’t say anything when he mutters names of the men he lost this week. this month. this year. levi is a quiet presence, a steadiness in the silence. and he’s so fierce, and erwin remembers mike’s words, but to erwin, levi is brave and beautiful and strong.

levi is the closest thing to perfection.

maybe mike is right.

“how do you enjoy your new position?” erwin asks. his quill feather is frayed and old, and there’s red ink at the tip that glues the barbs together. he refuses a new one every time levi offers.

“fine.” levi says.

“i have been thinking–”

“just cut to the point.”

erwin half smiles and huffs a laugh. “i would like to give you your own squad.”

“i already have one.”

“an elite squad. i will put you in charge in picking your squad members.” levi looks over at him, and there’s a conversation somewhere locked in his inflated chest, but it stays stuck. it surprises even erwin. “we have the most skilled men, and i want our best asset to be in charge of that squad.”

levi snaps back. “’asset’?”

erwin looks up at levi with a raised eyebrow. “hm?”

“is that it?”

“excuse me?”

“is that…” levi gets up from his spot on the couch in erwin’s office. “forget it.” erwin stands up, feeling the panic in his chest and hearing the hooves pounding across wooden floors. levi doesn’t even bother to grab his jacket as he leaves, slamming the door behind him.

erwin thinks of chasing him, but he thinks of what mike had said. he sits back in his chair, picks up his quill, and spends three times a long to finish his paperwork for the night. he’s not a normal man. he doesn’t chase people; he keeps them.

it takes a week for levi to return to erwin’s office to retrieve his jacket. erwin catches his eye before he leaves, clearing his throat. “i apologize.”

levi stops and looks at erwin. “for what?”

“you are more than that.” erwin says. there’s a steadiness in his voice that is so hard to hold, and the bolo tie tries to squeeze it so it won’t sound at all. “an asset, i mean.”

“what are you on–”

“to me, you are more than that.”

levi blinks slowly before his eyes glide down to the floor. he nods. “sure.”

“i expect a list of candidates for your squad within the week.”

levi juts his head up toward the end of erwin’s desk. “it’s there.”

erwin’s eyes meet where levi’s are. “oh.”

levi goes toward the door before pausing. he fidgets slightly like a nervous tick. like the flick of a bird’s wing. “it’s ok.”

“it was inappropriate.”

“it’s true.” he tilts his head, and when he swallows, erwin can almost hear it in the quietness across the room. “if it’s what i need to be, i will be it.”

erwin finds himself, for the first time in a long time, speechless.

“i’m yours.”

and his footsteps are soft and swift, and his heart is exposed and beating hard and fast. but it’s not angry. and it doesn’t sound like hooves but like the sound like a gentle patter of rain on leaves high in the trees. and it’s refreshing and calming, and erwin slides his eyes shut as the office door clicks shut.

and he knows that mike had been right.


	74. fleece

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for me because
> 
> FUCKING REASONS OK STOP LOOKING AT ME

levi has a black fleece that he wears between the months of september and may. the fabric is pilled and the elbows worn a bit thin. there’s a cigarette burn melted along the hem, and a matted piece of fabric on his chest from when some super glue dripped on it from an ancient ornament repair. it’s nearly another layer of his skin, and it’s often a topic of discussion.

“are you cold, darling?” erwin asks as they take their place on the couch, glasses of dark wine half filled and perched on their thighs. erwin wraps his arm around the back of the couch across levi’s shoulders, dropping it on his shoulder and drawing him close.

levi takes a sip of wine and shrugs. “i’m fine.”

“i can turn up the heat.” the smile and chuckle roil in his chest, and he brings his glass to his lips with a single swirl of his hand before taking a drink.

“maybe later.”

the black fleece finds its home on the bedroom floor two glasses of wine later. it’s hidden below his jeans that are frayed at the heels and his black t-shirt that’s wearing holes in the armpits. the only article of clothing from erwin that accompanies the pile is his silk coral tie–bought on sale for $79.99.

levi pulls down erwin by the front of his burberry dress shirt, peeling one button free at a time as he licks a trail up the tendon of his neck. levi always says he likes it like this–naked under erwin, feeling the softness of erwin’s expensive slacks against the back of his calves. staining the belly of erwin’s shirt with the wetness from the tip of his cock.

he never stays the night, even though erwin always asks. levi is weak kneed and drowsy, a little tipsy and giddy, when he leaves through erwin’s door. they kiss with sore lips, and levi counts the steps from erwin’s apartment to the stairwell, counts to thirteen as he hits the bottom stair. he brings the cuff of his sweater to his nose, breathes in the citrus and sandalwood that coats everything in erwin’s apartment, and breathes it out like a cigarette. 

it sobers him enough to make it home, but even though erwin had wrung him dry, he still finds his hand working its way into his pants, around his cock, and coming painfully in his hand as he smells erwin all over him.

he visits again the next night, bags of groceries in his hands. erwin turns the heat up to eighty, and levi still refuses to remove the sweater even as erwin’s shirt is damp in sweat. he goes home that night smelling like saffron and oranges and musk, and he touches himself so feverishly that he stains his fleece with splotches of himself.

“is this new?” erwin says two days later. he pulls at the collar of levi’s long sleeved button up, pulls him up to capture his lips with a fleeting teasing peck.

levi feels the heat in his cheeks, but he’s almost positive that erwin has kicked the heat up again. “no.”

“it’s nice.”

the shirt ends up on the headboard, levi’s hands holding white knuckled to the edge as erwin claims every naked part of his body. he cries out as he orgasms, fidgets against erwin who pulls him against his bare chest and holds him in an embrace. levi moves to get dressed, but erwin steadies his hand onto the bed. “stay.”

levi grumbles, succeeds against erwin’s strength and pulls down his shirt. instinctively, he brings it to his nose and sniffs quietly, but it doesn’t smell right. it smells like  _his_ apartment, and the comforting idea of bringing erwin home with him is shattered.

“what’s wrong, levi?”

he sniffs again, and it smells like chai and lemon, and he sighs. “nothing.”

erwin squeezes levi closer to him, kisses the nape of his neck, “please stay.”

levi closes his eyes, his heart caught somewhere in his throat by anxiety, that he can’t allow himself to get so attached to this man even though they had been dating for almost half a year. bringing him home on his clothes was one thing–he was never without erwin even when they were apart. but now he would be, and…

“ok.” he says. it barely passes his lips–an utter like a wheeze, but erwin hears it. he holds him close and presses his smile to the side of his cheek. it takes a few more minutes of letting erwin melt around him like a cooling ice cube for him to rest his eyes. it takes until erwin is softly snoring in his ear for his mind to calm enough to let him drift into a half sleep.

and when he shifts his head into his pillow and smells the lemons and sandalwood and the hint of pine, he shifts into a comfortable sleep he wishes he had fallen into sooner.


	75. ransom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for erurink. prompt: ransom

levi doesn’t think he asks for much. not really. they’re all so busy every day with schedules and training and more schedules, that coming to his office or quarters should be a place to relax–even just a little. 

levi doesn’t ask for much. he is only wishes for a clean living space. a clean office. clean hygiene. it’s a consideration. basic human respect. it’s not much. it’s really not much.

and levi prods. those that dare to mutter the words call him the “maid of the survey corps”. some even compare him to their mothers back home. when levi hears it the first time he sends the whole mess hall out to the courtyard to run laps until the bell chimes for curfew. the next time he hears it, he starts to wear it with pride. now, he just barks back with a “i’m better than your mother. at least i can beat some sense into you.”

erwin is a different beast. he sits at his desk sometimes hoarding paperwork and maps and scrolls like a dragon atop a pile of jewels. he grumbles when levi putters, swats him away like a fly when he gets too close. levi tends to hover outside of his peripheral vision, stealing untidy papers like a bird scavenging scraps from a distracted predator. he always succeeds. and when erwin grumbles too much, levi distracts him with tea and dry crackers. it always works.

levi doesn’t ask for much, but he asks that people don’t touch his shit. he also asks that people don’t fuck with him. though, it’s less of an ask, and more of an assumption. he’s been dubbed “humanity’s strongest”, and he shouts that out at erwin, not even grimacing as he normally does when he says the unwanted title. 

“erwin! why aren’t you taking this seriously?” he slams his open palm down on top of the letter he had placed there. “stop laughing!”

erwin removes his hand from his face and smooths out his features. he has always been a great commander–even of his emotions. “i apologize, levi. i do not mean to laugh.”

“what bold little  _fuck_  would think they could get away with doing this?”

“have you tried questioning one of the new recruits yet?” erwin says, flatly.

“i don’t want to make a big deal out of it.” levi says, leaning his hip against the edge of erwin’s desk. the steam seems to be running out, and he deflates a little.

“no, of course not. that is why you are here interrupting me while i am working.”

levi glares down at erwin. erwin has broken his facade again. a smile corners his lips, before he hides it by bowing his head. “this ain’t work.”

“oh, excuse me?”

levi flicks a paper aside from in front of erwin and replaces it with the letter in question. “erwin, this is serious.”

“‘statement of ransom’.” erwin reads. “yes, i do believe it is.”

“they took my cleaning supplies.”

“levi.”

levi’s glare intensifies, before a twitch of his eyebrow betrays his true meaning. his words come out less angry, though they are still stern. “i don’t ask for much.” levi says softly. he fidgets with a scroll on the desk, averting his gaze. “i need them back.”

erwin leans back in his chair and picks up the piece of paper. he reads it and rereads it until finally putting it back down on the table. he eyes levi and nods. “this is a very bold prank this person played. they will be reprimanded  accordingly when they are found.”

“i just want my stuff back.” levi’s teeth grind and he strides off toward the door. “it helps me.”

erwin watches him without saying a word and nods once as levi exits the door.

a few days later, levi comes into erwin’s office dragging along the new blond headed recruit. his eyes are blue and bright and glassy with approaching tears. but he keeps his composure and blinks them away as he salutes the commander.

“at ease.” levi barks. he rounds the side of the boy and takes a seat on the couch.

“to what do i owe such a visit?” erwin says. he places down his quill and tents his fingers above his paperwork.

“this brat’s handwritings matches the random letter.” levi glares daggers into the kid. “but he swears up and down he doesn’t know where my shit is.”

“i do not, sir. i apologize, sir.” the kid says. he’s shaking ever so slightly, but he seems to have gathered enough courage to keep a straight back.

“armin arlert, is it?” erwin says. he leans forward, and armin takes a step back. “you will not be punished if you simply return the supplies to the captain. that is all he is asking for.”

“i-i… sir. i do not know where they are, sir.”

“did you write the damn letter?” levi barks again.

armin hangs his head and bites his lip. he nods once.

“then where’s my supplies!”

“levi, please.” erwin says.

“permission to speak privately, commander.” armin says. it’s quiet enough to be spoken by a mouse, but loud enough for both to hear.

“whatever you gotta say–”

“granted. levi, please see yourself out. you may return when armin leaves.”

levi’s expression grows dark, eyes squinting before rolling. he stands up and stalks out of the office, shutting the door heavily and rattling items on erwin’s desk.

the conversation doesn’t last long. levi seat is still warm when he returns back to erwin’s office. “what the fuck was that about?” levi grumbles.

“it appears i am the con here.” erwin says a bit sheepishly.

levi raises and eyebrow and turns his head. “excuse me?”

“i requested armin to write the letter when i was a bit…” erwin plays with his pen as he rolls his bottom lip between his teeth. “i perhaps had too much to drink at our last outing.”

“you pranked me?”

erwin nods, and if he isn’t grinning just a little bit. “it seems that way, yes.”

“so you know where my shit is?”

“i do not.” erwin shakes his head. “i do not recall where i hid your supplies.”

levi huffs, and it borders on a laugh. “you fuckin’ asshole.”

“i will purchase you new ones tonight. i apologize, levi.” he looks up at levi and offers a pleasantly cautious smile. “it was an unkind joke to play.”

levi kicks his leg over the other and rests an arm along the back of the couch. “it was.”

“i understand now, though.”

“do you?”

“yes. we all deal with this differently. i am appalled i did not see it before.”

levi looks down at the tip of his boot and shrugs. “it’s ok.” his jaw moves with his thoughts. “get me some boot shine too.”

“absolutely.”

“and a duster with an extra long handle. i can’t reach the top of your shelves.”

“it will be yours.”

levi nods before hinting a smile. “i need some oil too.”

“that can be arranged.”

levi’s lips fold into a thin smile. “you’re forgiven, commander.”

erwin returns the smile before turning his attention back to his work. levi stands up and fishes through erwin’s papers before finding the ransom note again. he folds it and puts it into his pocket before leaving the office, clicking the door latch behind him quietly.


	76. sick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tea time for ask-commander-eyebrows because he was sick and i didn't like that :(

erwin has a nasty habit of getting sick. he has an even worse habit of working through his sicknesses. he’s good at hiding it. like a performer, the show must go on, though he takes a bit too far at times. he continues to command, controlling his voice so the congestion can’t be heard in his voice. he circumvents the hoarseness in his throat and continues on with his supply checklists. the glassiness of his eyes, the vacantness of his stares at times when he has a moment alone, he blinks it all away in the presence of a subordinate.

there’s just not enough time.

there’s never enough time.

“i don’t care.” levi says. he presses the edge of the bed sheet against erwin’s chest and forces the taller man to the bed. “lay the  _fuck_  down, you dumbass tree.”

“i don’t have–” erwin interrupts himself with a railing cough, and he covers his mouth with both hands to muffle it from leaking out of the door. “shit.”

“yeah, ‘shit’ is right.” levi pushes harder and succeeds. erwin’s back hits the bed, both erwin and the bed groaning in defeat. “even just one day will help clear that up.”

“i have to get those reports out, or we’ll miss the deadline for our funding schedule.”

“i’ll do it.”

“and we need to check on the intake of the new horses. we need to see if they’re fit for our needs…”

“have the breeders ever let us down?”

“the southern barracks need some heavy repairs, and i need to figure out how we can fit it into our budget…”

“i already figured that one out.” levi takes a seat at the edge of erwin’s bed, and cool washcloth in his hand that he wrung out in the basin that sits at the bedside table. “rest, for once in your fuckin’ life.” levi places the washcloth on erwin’s forehead. “we need to break your fever, or a titan will do it for you.”

erwin sighs out, a shudder running through his body. he closes his eyes and nods once. “just for a little while…”

levi drags the washcloth across erwin’s forehead. erwin breathes in and out of his mouth, struggling to keep from coughing again, but failing. levi waits before he leans over, hovers over erwin, and places a long kiss to erwin’s temple. he retreats back and leaves the rolled up washcloth on his forehead. “just for a little while.”

levi sits at the desk in erwin’s quarters processing paperwork and reviewing tables and charts. he manages through most of it and takes a break to make tea. he returns back to his seat, glancing across all of the work that erwin chooses to define himself with. levi knows full well erwin is more than all this. he’s shown it to him so many times in the past.

erwin is a man. nothing more, nothing less.

he smiles a tad into his tea as he listens to the sound of erwin snoring behind him. he slides his eyes shut and shakes his head. “what a man…”


	77. someday forever away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is out of order and wasn't tagged properly in my tumblr. just some random thing i wrote unprompted.

Levi likes it when their knuckles line up, fingers pieced together like zipper teeth, like cobblestones, like feathers. He squeezes their bones together, tries to fuse them into one mass, because then maybe he will never leave. He can’t leave. The sky is too high, and Erwin hasn’t shown it all to him yet.

Erwin likes it when Levi sighs out a moan so short and clipped, it’s as if he’s knocked the wind out him. This man with a title bigger than his stature, the man smart and determined enough to teach himself the directional gear, could be the same man that buckles under somebody as broken as himself.

And when it happens at the same time, Erwin’s hips meeting the back of Levi’s thighs, they find a piece that keeps them both whole. And when they come, they seem to lose their names and the bodies between them. And when they kiss, they know that it will need to end someday.

But someday is forever away, and Levi hopes it’s farther away than the vast fathoms of the sky.


	78. taking the black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> out of order 3 sentence game of thrones au story

They call him a pup when he takes the black, but they quickly learn that his teeth are grown in, that what he lacks in skill with a sword, he makes up for with his knife. The Commander takes interest in him, soon taking him in as if he were one of the northern king’s dire wolves, lets him snap the other crows into their place with his wraith like movements and his quick witted bite. They follow him outside of the walls, this thief from southern Westeros, his furs flapping like a flag of salvation, and nobody dares to utter ill words about the Commander and his war dog.


	79. the model

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> three sentence challenge

Levi arrives early to get the best seat–the that will be directly in front of their model–and he sets out his supplies: graphite pencils, charcoal, pastels, acrylics, colored pencils, markers, brushes; it’s all neatly organized and particularly aligned so he can easily pack away the supplies he won’t be using. He likes to wait and see what the model looks like before choosing–their skin tone, their height, their weight, the way the lights hits their contours, the general ‘air’ about them, their expression, their position.

Once the model arrives and takes his pose, Levi finds it hard to look onto the man’s form, his fingers shaking over the array of mediums at his disposal, unable to pick the proper instrument because he’s too overcome with the desire–no, the  _need_ –to use his tongue to paint those abs instead of a paint brush.


End file.
